


Thicker Than Water

by ArtemisRayne



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Angst, F/M, Nathan!Whump, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-19
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 04:23:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 37,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisRayne/pseuds/ArtemisRayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone has it out for the new Chief of Police. When Nathan goes missing, Audrey is left behind to figure out where he's gone. But most terrifying of all, this kidnapper knows how to beat the Troubles. Can Audrey find him before the pain becomes too much?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning of the End

"Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it."

\- Mark Twain

* * *

Nathan's eyes felt heavy, and he couldn't bring himself to open them. It wasn't like there would be anything worth seeing if he did anyway. He had seen the view that was in front of him, had been seeing it for hours or days or however long this torment had lasted, and he knew its every detail by heart. The flat, bleak walls, the muted colours, the metal piping that ran through concrete, and the table that was laden with shining silver objects. Or they used to be silver. Now they were all a dark shade of red.

A sharp pain blossomed in his side, and his body flinched unconsciously. As his muscles flexed in a futile attempt to get away, a second wave of pain swept through him, this one from the inside. His every muscle and tendon felt like fire. Wounds that had only partially closed up all broke open at the movement and sent stabbing needles through his skin. The skin around his wrists and ankles that was already rubbed raw tore even worse, and he could feel blood as it dripped down onto his face and shoulders.

He could feel every single inch of his body for the first time in over a decade, and there was nothing he could feel but pain.

"Don't go slipping away on me, Nathan," the voice taunted, and a sharp slap across the face momentarily cleared the fogginess in his brain. "No, you're not cutting out yet. We're not finished here. There's still so much more fun to be had."

Nathan could smell it before he felt it; heat. The acrid tang of hot metal was thick in the air, and then it came to rest against his bare chest. A strangled scream leapt from him, muffled beyond recognition in the gag secured in his mouth. He had given up trying to be strong so long ago. For a while, he had bit his tongue and swallowed back the agony trying to escape him, but that time had passed. There was no point in even trying anymore. He had no pride left.

Now, he was just waiting for the last blow that would finally,  _finally_ take him away from this hell.

The searing metal had lifted from his chest and moved to his stomach, burning its way through a gaping wound that was already there, still trailing hot blood down his waist. Even though they were closed, lights flashed behind Nathan's eyes, and he felt a strange lightness. This was it; it was nearly the end.

He had always thought that before a man died, he would see his life flash before his eyes. He wanted to see better times and better places. His little bungalow, his mother, his favourite lookout above the beach, Audrey Parker. He was bitterly disappointed when his memory only went back until the beginning of the end.


	2. Two Weeks Previous

_Two Weeks Previous_

Nathan rummaged frantically through the drawers of his desk until he found the first aid kit tucked into the back corner beneath some neglected files. He grabbed a roll of gauze from the box and walked back to where his partner, Audrey Parker, was standing, clutching her bleeding arm to her chest. "How exactly did you manage this one?" he asked as he began mopping away the blood on her forearm with a stack of napkins left over from various takeout dinners eaten in the office.

"I caught my arm on that broken corner in the file cabinet," Audrey said. She winced as Nathan rubbed against a patch of shredded skin that was still partially attached. "I forgot it stuck out like that."

Nathan cringed. "Oh right, I'm supposed to fix that," he said. "Sorry." With the blood wiped off her arm, he wrapped it up in gauze and then stepped back once it was tied off. "It didn't look deep enough to need stitches so you should be okay with that, but we'll recheck it later."

"Thanks, Nathan," Audrey said, examining the bandaging gratefully. "I just hope I didn't bleed on the files. The Haven filing system has enough problems already without adding bloodstains on the paperwork." When Nathan didn't respond, she looked up curiously. He was staring down at his hands, speckled with her blood, with an awestruck look on his face. "Nathan?" she asked uncertainly.

That seemed to startle him back to reality, and he glanced up to meet her eyes before hastily turning his attention back to his hands. "Sorry, it's just–" he trailed off and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together deliberately. "I can feel my skin. Where your - where your blood is, I can feel."

"That's," Audrey hesitated, casting around for the right word, and then finally settled on, "creepy."

"Yeah, it is," Nathan agreed. "I'm going to go wash up." He walked out of the office and into the little restroom in the corner of the building. For a minute he stood in front of the mirror, rubbing his palms together. He could feel the hot, sticky liquid clinging to his skin, and beneath that he could feel the coarse, cool skin of his hands. It was exhilarating, being able to feel. He flexed his hands, feeling the way that the skin pulled and stretched across joints and tendons. It felt - amazing.

Marvelling, Nathan looked down at his hands. The bright contrast of red on his skin made his stomach twist, and the reality of it all sank in. That was blood. Audrey's blood. His partner and best friend's blood was staining his hands. With a disgusted frown, Nathan flipped on the sink and plunged his hands into the water. For a minute, he could feel the frigid water as it splashed over his skin, and then it slowly faded into nothingness as the scarlet water disappeared down the drain.

Nathan towelled off his hands, ignoring the vacant sensation of rubbing his hands together again, and then went back into the office. Audrey was sitting at her desk and thumbing through a stack of manila folders but she looked up when he came back in. Some of his thoughts must have shown on his face because she gave him a concerned look. "Nathan, you okay?"

"Fine," he answered instinctively. He dropped into his desk chair and when he looked up again she was still watching him curiously. "It was just - weird, you know? To be able to feel my skin like that again. I'm still not quite used to it whenever it happens, and it's never been so intense before." Audrey was staring at him raptly, so Nathan shook his head. "But it doesn't matter. I'm not going to be using your blood to make me feel again. That's - sadistic."

"It is kind of whacked out," Audrey agreed matter-of-factly. Nathan smirked at her bluntness and then picked up a stack of paper sitting on the corner of his desk.

"Well, if you're done trying to amputate your limbs, I'm going to get this work finished so I can go home before midnight," he said with a teasing smile in her direction. Audrey returned the look sarcastically before she devoted herself to her own paperwork.

They worked clean through the rest of the evening. It was, for once, a quiet day in Haven, and the chief and detective were actually left alone to catch up on the growing mountains of papers on their desks that never seemed to disappear. At six-thirty, Audrey announced that she was going to leave for the night and she came over to squeeze his hand before she left. Nathan smiled and rubbed his fingers together again, appreciating the gesture.

He had been so worried about telling Audrey the truth about his ability to feel her. He didn't know what it meant, or why it was possible. And even though she had been a little hurt that he hadn't told her sooner, she had taken the news a lot better than he could have ever imagined. Instead of shunning him or acting strange around him, she had accepted it readily and now she made a point of including him in small moments of physical contact almost daily. It was never anything obvious, just a touch of the hand to get his attention or slapping his arm playfully. They were simple things, but Nathan treasured each and every one of them.

With a distracted sigh, he leaned back in his chair and looked around the office. It had only been three months since The Chief had died. After the funeral, Nathan had been promoted to the position of chief of police and he'd taken it without hesitation. Technically he was still Acting-Chief, but everyone knew it would become a permanent job. It had never really been his ambition – truthfully he'd never actually imagined a world where The Chief wasn't there to boss him around anymore – but now that he knew the sort of things that were going on in his hometown, he knew being chief was the best way to fight them. No way were people like The Rev and Max Hansen getting any leverage in Haven, not so long as he was the one in charge.

Still, it was difficult adjusting to his new surroundings. He had taken The Chief's office – it was the one with the classified safe in it, and that sort of thing couldn't be moved easily – and for the most part it still looked the way it had before. The same leather chair tucked under the same polished desk, The Chief's commendations still hung on the wall, and an old picture of him and The Chief on a fishing trip was still perched on the corner of the desk. The major difference lay in the second desk that had been added against the opposite wall.

Nathan chuckled to himself, remembering the nightmare they'd had trying to get it into the room. Audrey had rolled the desk over her toes and it had resulted in some imaginative cussing that made some of the younger deputies blush and Laverne click her tongue in disapproval. In the end though, Nathan hadn't wanted to be separated. He worked best when Audrey was around. They had become a team in the time since she'd come to Haven and he couldn't imagine coming to work and not having to listen to her talk at him all day. And when he'd suggested she make the move she hadn't put up any fight at all, so he assumed she felt the same.

They were a unit, he and Audrey. Had been from almost the very start. It was just the way things worked, and who was he to fight whatever Fate had been laid out for them? Because no matter what Duke said to the contrary, Nathan knew that meeting Audrey had been an act of Fate. Good things never just came into his life without a reason.

A knock at the door made Nathan look around in surprise. He'd thought he was the last one in the office again. Instead, he found Audrey standing in the doorway, a to-go bag from the Gull in her hands and a grin on her face. "Hey boss, fancy a bit of dinner?"

"You didn't have to do that," Nathan said even as he smiled.

"Yes, I did. Because I know you, and if I don't come and make you stop working, you'll forget entirely about eating," Audrey said. She walked in and dropped down onto the leather sofa beneath the inner office window. "So get over here and enjoy some shrimp with me, and then you can go back to working 'til dawn."

Nathan obligingly moved to the couch and accepted the Styrofoam container she handed him. When she made to offer him a beer as well, he raised an eyebrow. She snorted. "C'mon, it's not like we're on duty," she said.

"No, but we are in the station," Nathan pointed out.

"It's just one beer, Nathan."

Nathan regarded the beer bottle for a moment and then glanced up into Audrey's piercing blue eyes and playful smile. "You're a bad influence, Detective Parker," he informed her as he took the bottle from her.

Audrey shrugged casually. "So I've been told."


	3. The Call

When the phone in his briefcase rang, John knew that his day was about to get good. That was the phone number he only gave to his best clients, the ones who supplied the really fun jobs. He set aside his glass of bourbon and crossed the room to answer the phone. He flipped open the cellular but didn't say anything, as was his custom. There was a six-second pause before a cleared throat, and then a voice came from the other end of the line.

"Mr Doe, I am in need of your services once again."

John smiled because he knew that voice; an excellent client indeed. "I am pleased to hear from you again, sir," he said. "It's been too long."

"Yes, well, for a while it seemed this place could be kept under control," the client said. "But circumstances have changed."

"Who is it, then?" John asked eagerly.

"The new chief of police," the client answered. A delirious smile broke out over John's face at the very thought. Not just a policeman, but a chief. This day was getting better by the minute. "He's trying to change the order of things around here. We want him gone."

John's smile slipped for a moment. "Just a disappearance?" he asked dejectedly. "You know that's not my style, even for my preferred clients."

There was a cold laugh from the other end of the line. "Don't worry, Mr Doe, this will require so much more than a disappearance," he assured. "This man is upsetting the carefully balanced order we've worked so hard to build in this town. I want him put in his place. You must teach him the price of his crimes before you get rid of him. And the more he suffers, the higher your pay cheque."

This job sounded like a dream come true. His fingers were already twitching with anticipation, his mind running through a list of what tools he should bring. There was only one last thing to address. "Is this chief one of your town's speciality cases? Because you know my rate is higher for those. Last time that woman nearly ruined my entire operation with those explosions she caused."

"He's one of the cursed ones, yes, but in this case, it won't be an issue. Trust me, I've found the way to stop his Affliction, and it's going to make your job even more fun. Everything is already laid out; all I need is for you to make it happen."

John felt the familiar burgeoning thrill forming in his chest, sending tingling waves through his limbs and making his stomach twist in knots. "I'll leave first thing in the morning," he said. "As soon as I get there, I'll be in contact to set up an appointment, and you can fill me in on all of the details about this particular sheriff."

"I look forward to seeing your handiwork again, Mr Doe." And then the line went dead.

John was practically skipping as he closed the cellular and tucked it back into its compartment in his briefcase. He picked up his glass of bourbon and drained the rest of it in one swallow. Then he picked up a scalpel from the side table and fingered it thoughtfully, a wicked grin spreading across his face.

"Haven, here I come."


	4. Irrational

Audrey folded her arms and glared obstinately at Nathan. "This is ridiculous," she said flatly. As this was the fourth time she'd said it, Nathan only rolled his eyes. "I mean really, where did you come up with this idea?"

Nathan fought the urge to roll his eyes for the fifth time. When they were working a case, her stubbornness was usually a good thing, but when she turned against him, she did a good job of making his life a living hell. "If you'd let me get a word in edgewise, you'd know," he said pointedly. "The order came in from Bangor. It's a county-wide mandate."

"Well, it's still ridiculous," Audrey said.

"Ridiculous or not, you're going through with it," Nathan said. "Every police officer in the county is doing this, that's the rule."

"A county-wide blood drive," Audrey remarked sarcastically.

"How many times have you needed a blood transfusion because of something that happened on duty?" Nathan asked rhetorically. He could tell by the determinedly collected look on her face that he'd finally made his point, even if she didn't want to admit it. "That's why they're having us all do this. That way if something happens where an officer needs it, we have some on hand here at the hospital. No point in losing good officers because we don't have their blood type in stock. It's just a safety precaution, Parker."

"A ridiculous one," Audrey muttered, but the fight had left her stance, so Nathan let her be. A few minutes later, a nurse gestured them into a room and directed them to the hospital beds. Nathan settled himself onto one of the beds and looked over in time to see Audrey climb onto the other one, looking around furtively.

"Sleeves up," the nurse ordered. Nathan took off his jacket, so he was wearing only his tee-shirt, and Audrey set about rolling up the sleeve of her button-down. Nathan waited patiently as the nurse inserted the needle into the crook of his arm, well used to the process. It wasn't his first time, after all. When every nerve in your body abruptly stops working, they run a  _lot_  of blood tests.

"There you go, hon," the nurse said and patted his forearm before walking over to Audrey. His partner tensed and he noticed that she seemed to be looking everywhere except at the needle coming toward her arm. Nathan waited until the nurse had finished her work and left, with a quick, "call out if you start feeling bad," before he decided to speak up.

"So that's why you were making such a fuss about this," he said with a small grin. "You're afraid of needles."

"I am not," Audrey said, a bit too quickly. Nathan raised an eyebrow. "So I might not like them much, but that doesn't mean I'm  _afraid_."

Nathan nodded but couldn't keep the smile from twisting up the corners of his lips. Audrey must have noticed because she said, "You can't tell me you don't have any irrational fears. Everyone does."

"Nope," Nathan said. Audrey gave him a sceptical look. "This is Haven; there's no such thing as irrational."

Audrey cringed. "If you're suggesting we might have to face a Troubled person made of needles, I'm moving back to Boston."

Even if he doubted she was serious, Nathan wasn't going to push the topic. The last thing he wanted was to discuss the possibility of Audrey leaving Haven, even if it was a joke. "So Parker, did that lead with the fisherman turn up anything on Lucy?" he asked to change to subject.

The weary look she gave him was answer enough, but he sat back and listened as she recounted her disastrous meeting with a fisherman who'd been in the Colorado Kid picture. He had apparently turned out to be only slightly more sane than the photographer who was obsessed with the crab people. By the time she was finished the nurse had come back and removed their IVs, bandaging the punctures inside their arms.

"Alright, you're all set to go," the nurse said. "Just take it easy for the next couple hours; you might feel a bit woozy for a while."

"Meaning dinner and paperwork in the office tonight, and that's all," Nathan said, standing up and putting his jacket back on. Audrey shot him an indignant look. "Sorry Parker, but I'm not having you fainting in the middle of a crime scene. There are more than enough officers on duty to handle this place for one evening."

"The Truscotts-"

"Can wait until tomorrow," Nathan finished. "They're not going anywhere. Trust me."

Audrey still didn't look completely satisfied, but she nodded and followed him out of the hospital. Nathan drove them to the diner, and they ordered their usuals to-go. They hardly spoke until much later when they whispered up in their office again, just finishing with their dinners on the sofa.

Nathan could tell that Audrey was still tense, and judging by the way she kept touching the bandages in the curve of her elbow, he could guess why. "The dark," he said abruptly.

"What?" Audrey asked, looking up from the remains of her sandwich in confusion.

"Earlier, you asked if I had any irrational fears," Nathan explained, setting aside the empty dinner box and turning on the sofa to face her better. "I'm terrified of the dark."

Audrey regarded him thoughtfully for a moment as if trying to decide if he was mocking her or not. She apparently chose to trust him because she moved her dinner to the table and then stared up at him with wide eyes. "Really? The dark?"

"I always have been, ever since I was a kid," Nathan admitted. "When I was seven, I accidentally got myself shut up inside the attic at my parents' house. It was pitch black, so I couldn't see to find my way out, and this is back when I couldn't feel, so I couldn't even feel around to find the door. I was stuck up there for hours until the Chief came home and heard me crying. I've never really gotten over it, especially now that I can't feel again."

Audrey didn't give much of a reaction to the story, but Nathan could tell that the line of her shoulders had softened. She turned to him, and then a small smile curved her lips. "You've got a bit of syrup on your chin," she informed him. Nathan swiped a hand over his chin, and she laughed. "No, the other side. Here, let me get it."

She reached over, and as she caught his chin between her fingers, Nathan's breath stuck in his chest. Her thumb rubbed across a patch of skin on his jaw, and the nerves flared into life. He could feel the pad of her thumb as it scraped along the faint five o'clock shadow that had sprouted along his jaw line. She didn't stop with just wiping away the spot of stickiness though, and her thumb continued to ghost over the lines of his chin. Her thumbnail strayed close to his lower lip, and Nathan had to swallow back a groan. He must not have done as good a job as he thought because she noticed.

"Sorry," Audrey whispered. She made to pull her hand away, but Nathan caught her by the wrist.

"Please, don't be." He placed her hand back on his cheek, closing his eyes as he felt the warmth of her palm on his skin. She traced the lines of his face with her fingertips. Nathan's head was spinning beneath the wave of sensation, and it was from more than just the fact that he could feel the touch. It was from  _who_  was touching him.

Audrey's hand paused, and Nathan opened his eyes, wondering if he'd pushed her too far. He found her face just inches from his, her lips slightly parted and her eyes dark but hesitant. She looked exactly the way that he felt and that's what ultimately drove him over the edge.

Grabbing her face between his hands, Nathan brought her lips to his. It was like heaven. Her lips were soft, and she tasted sweet and tangy at the same time. She moved her mouth against his eagerly, one hand on the back of his neck and the other scraping through his hair, welcoming him into a world of new touches and feelings. Nathan couldn't get enough of her. Audrey. His Audrey.

His hand slipped beneath the hem of her shirt to feel her hot skin, tracing the curves of her hipbone and the rise and fall of her spine. Without any prompting, Audrey swung one leg over his and settled herself in his lap. As she worked on the buttons of her shirt, he pulled his tee-shirt over his head, tossing it away over the arm of the couch. Audrey splayed her hands against his chest and Nathan couldn't stop the surprised gasp that escaped him. Beneath her palm, he could actually feel his heartbeat hammering against his chest, and the feeling alone was exhilarating. After so long of feeling nothing, these teasing little touches were maddening.

He couldn't take much more of this.

It seemed that Audrey was done being patient as well. She stripped off the tank top she was wearing, and then her hands went to the button of his jeans. It didn't take long for the last of their clothes to litter the floor. Even though the station was empty, Nathan locked the office door just in case.

When he turned around, it was to see Audrey, sitting on the sofa and watching him expectantly. Her bare skin glowed white against the dark brown leather, and her blue eyes were low and hooded. A small smirk crossed her swollen lips as she met his gaze. "You just going to stand there all night, Wuornos?"

Nathan gave a wry chuckle as he came back to join her. She drew him down to her, and the feel of every inch of their bodies aligning was the most euphoric thing he'd ever known. A stray thought crossed his mind in that second, and it drew another short laugh from him. Audrey gave him a questioning look, so he kissed her thoroughly before answering. "Just imagining what The Chief would say if he found out what we're doing on his couch." Audrey grinned against his mouth, a low, breathy laugh vibrating against his chest.

And then she eased him in and he stopped thinking entirely.


	5. The Morning After

Nathan shuffled to the restroom, being careful not to trip over anything in the semi-dark. He made sure that the door shut behind him before flicking on the light, squinting against the sudden brightness. His reflection in the mirror nearly made him laugh. His hair was a mussed disaster, sticking up in ways he hadn't even known were possible. His lips still looked slightly swollen, and there was a faint purplish bruise on his collarbone. He had a hickey. Nathan actually did chuckle at that. That was something he hadn't had since he was in college.

Turning on the sink, he splashed water on his face and then wiped it dry on the hand towel, clearing some of the sleep from his face. Then he dragged his fingers through his hair in an attempt to flatten it before slipping back into the darkened bedroom. He could just make out the lump beneath the blankets in the very middle of the bed, and he smiled, remembering the previous night in vivid detail.

It had started out with simple touches but had escalated from there like an avalanche. The next thing he'd known, he was having sex for the first time in years. And not just sex, but sex with Audrey. God had she looked radiant, sprawled across the sofa and staring up at him with eyes so much darker than usual. He could still picture it in his mind; fans of blonde hair feathered over chocolate leather, pale skin flushed in bright pink patches, every delicate curve of her body. All of that, and she was there, wanting him.

The sex itself had been - well, orgasmic, not to put too fine a point on it. It had been a complete sensory overload for him, flooding him with so many things that he was thrown off the edge much too soon for his liking. For a while they'd just laid there, bent at strange angles over the couch and tangled deep in each other. Nathan had been, and still was, quite confident that he would be content to spend the rest of his life that way, wrapped up in Audrey Parker.

After a while, they'd finally gathered their clothes from the office floor and left for the night. Nathan had given her a ride home, she'd invited him in for a coffee, and that had been the end of it. They'd gone two more rounds that night before finally falling asleep together in her little motel bed.

It had been, without a doubt, the single best night of Nathan's life.

The only question that he had left was where this left them now. They had never had any talks about having a relationship before. They had always been strictly friends, although on more than one occasion they had admittedly tiptoed right along that fine line between friends and more-than-friends. Still, he wasn't sure what their night together would do to their tenuous balance.

If he had his way, he would do everything in his power to keep her with him. He'd never been very good at serious relationships, but then again he'd never known a woman like Audrey before. She made him want more than he'd ever dare dream of having before. He couldn't imagine a Haven or a life without her in it, no matter what status their relationship was. Although if he had any say in the matter, then he would definitely prefer it stay in the place it's in now. He rather liked waking up to her, even if it meant getting woken up by taking an elbow to the stomach like he had that morning.

Shaking his head to clear it, Nathan walked around the room to where he could see his underwear at the foot of the bed. Regardless of what was happening between him and Audrey, it was a work day, and they had things to do. Which meant they needed coffee. It took a little more rummaging before he found his jeans hanging across the armchair and his shirt in a heap beneath the standing lamp in the corner. He wound up not being able to find one of his socks, but he just shrugged it off and told himself he'd grab it later when he didn't have to worry about waking Audrey.

He slipped out of the B&B as quietly as he could, chancing one last glance at Audrey's silhouette beneath the blankets before he shut the door. It was still cool enough to see his breath in the pre-dawn, and he had a passing thought that he should have dug up his jacket before leaving, but he was fairly sure it had ended up underneath the bed. How it had gotten there, he couldn't exactly remember, but he'd have time for going through those details later.

Standing outside of his truck, he plunged his hand into his pocket to find his keys and then he heard it. A faint shuffle. He didn't even have the time to spin around before an arm closed around his throat and a hand covered his mouth and nose. He sucked in a shocked gasp and could smell something strong and sweet as it burned into his throat. That was a smell he recognised, even as his head started to spin. _Chloroform_. He tried to shake off the other person but his world was tilting dangerously, and black had begun seeping into his vision.

His knees buckled underneath him and he slumped face first against the side of his truck. Now he could smell the dull tang of copper beneath the sweetness of chloroform. One last disjointed thought crossed his mind - that he should have just stayed in bed with Audrey - before the darkness dragged him under.


	6. Ominous

Audrey gave a sleepy moan and curled down further into the blankets. She had slept well, far better than normal, and she wasn't ready to get out of bed yet. Whatever time it was, it was far too early. Especially after she had been up so late the night before.

A small smile crept across Audrey's face at the memory. Months of tension had come to a head in what Audrey could only classify as a magnificent night. She had never dared to dream that she would wind up in bed with monosyllabic, small town cop Nathan Wuornos, but she had. And she had enjoyed the hell out of it.

Speaking of Nathan… She frowned as she swept her hands around her on the bed but he was nowhere to be found. Confused, Audrey sat up and squinted around the room. The curtains drawn over the window blocked out the majority of the morning sunlight, but even in the semi-darkness she could tell she was alone in the room. "Nathan?" she called out, wondering if he was in the bathroom. There was no response.

Where had he gone? He couldn't have just left, could he? Not after last night. She had been sure it meant as much to him as it had to her. That look in his eyes when he's stared down at her, like she was the most mesmerizing thing he'd ever seen. That couldn't have been just because he could feel her. That was more. Audrey might not know much about relationships, but she knew that what she and Nathan shared transcended friendship.

So where was he?

Audrey made to pull on a sweatshirt from the floor but she paused. No, this wasn't her sweatshirt. It was Nathan's jacket. He wore this thing everywhere, he wouldn't have left without it. Not unless he was fully intending to come back. A small breath of relief escaped Audrey as she pulled the jacket around her shoulders and buttoned it. He was going to come back.

Now that her initial panic had eased, Audrey almost laughed at realizing how paranoid she was being. Of course he was going to come back. This was Nathan she was talking about. He might be inarticulate and withdrawn and socially clueless, but he was nothing if not dependable. He wouldn't just leave her. She had spent far too many years in a constant state of transition if she was starting to suspect even dependable Nathan of deserting her.

A quick glance at the clock told her she had little under an hour to get ready for work. That must have been where Nathan had gone. He'd need to get changed for work, and then he would probably stop and get them coffee on his way back to pick her up. That was a Nathan-y sort of thing to do. Feeling satisfied with that, Audrey went into the bathroom to shower before he got back. Unless of course he happened to get back before she got out of the shower, then she'd let him know he was more than welcome to join her. With a wry grin on her face, Audrey slipped out of his jacket and under the spray of cool water.

As Audrey scrubbed herself, letting the water rolled away across her skin, she thought about the night before. She had had sex before, it wasn't like she was a prude or anything. There had been men in college that she'd slept with, usually to burn off stress before exams. And there were a couple times as an adult where she'd gotten tangled up at a bar after a tough case and ended up going home with a man she met. But none of those times had felt the way last night had. They had been good, sure, and physically satisfying, some more than others, but they had never felt - right.

Nathan felt right.

For a man who hadn't had sex in almost a decade, damn was he good at it. He had done everything in his power to leave her writhing in pleasure on the couch and the bed, and he had succeeded with flying colours. It was in everything, from the way he looked at her to the urgency in his touch to the way he gasped her name and his gravelly voice made it sound almost carnal. It wasn't just physical, it was deeper than that. Stronger than that. Audrey had never felt so wanted in her life.

A new wave of warmth had blossomed below Audrey's stomach and she shifted her weight in the shower, sincerely wishing Nathan had gotten back already. Her mind was flooding with images of her and Nathan and the steam and the shower. How would it feel to have him inside her amid the steamy air? And how would it feel for him, feeling the moisture of the shower every place where their skin touched? New ideas began forming in her mind, of a million different sensations she could introduce him to.

Shaking her head, Audrey forced herself to focus. She had work and it wouldn't do to be fidgeting in her seat all day as she tried not to lay the chief of police out across his desk. No, that probably wasn't exactly proper police decorum. Of course then again neither had attacking each other on the couch in their office, but she liked to think that didn't count. It's not like there was anyone else there. She'd already traumatized a few of the younger deputies with the curse words she'd picked up at Quantico; it probably wouldn't be good to scar them further.

Audrey showered quickly and climbed out of the shower to escape the cascade of images that were battering against her mind the longer she stood under the water. When had she become such a horny little teenager? She dried off and wrapped a towel around herself, and then wandered into the bedroom to dress. Nathan still wasn't back and she began to wonder what was taking him so long. He must have just barely left before she woke up or he would've been back by now. She dressed, tamed her hair and applied a fresh coat of make-up, and then settled in to wait.

With each minute that the clock ticked closer to eight o'clock Audrey felt like a weight was settling heavier in her stomach. Where was he? Had he gotten lost or something? Or maybe he'd dropped their coffees and had to go back for refills. At seven-forty-nine, Audrey pulled out her cell phone and hit the first number in her speed dial to call him. It rang four times and then jumped to his voice mail. Huffing in annoyance, she hung up and waited a few more minutes. She called again at seven-fifty-seven and the same thing happened.

"C'mon Nathan, where are you?" she grumbled aloud as she snapped the phone shut again. Nathan was never late.

Maybe she had misinterpreted. Maybe this whole having slept together thing was going to be too awkward for him, and that's why he'd bolted. Maybe he really had left with no intention of coming back.

A sharp ache had formed in her chest and she stood up, fully intending to go hunt down Nathan and find out what the hell was up. She would confront him right in the middle of the station if she had to, traumatized deputies be damned. Grabbing his jacket, she tugged it on and then stepped outside, locking up the door to her room as she did. On the porch she squinted out at the morning; the sky was only slightly over-cast, weak rays of sunlight streaking through the clouds, and small white crests were forming on the waves along the coast as the gulls coasted overhead. It would've been a nice day if she wasn't so thoroughly pissed off.

Huddling in the coat against the crisp ocean breeze, Audrey turned and walked down off the porch toward the road. Her rental car was around on the side and she'd have to coax the temperamental thing into working so she could get to the station. She had only made it three steps down off the porch before she froze, a confused frown creasing her face. Nathan's big blue Bronco was sitting in the car park down at the very end of the row where he always parked, well away from other cars. He was slightly neurotic about his truck and never parked near other cars if he could avoid it, in case they scratched or dented it.

But if his truck was here, where was he?

He couldn't have walked home. She knew Nathan was all for fresh air but walking all the way across town to change his clothes before work seemed a bit extreme. Maybe he'd lost his truck keys. That made sense, she supposed, considering how much their clothes had been thrown around last night. After all, she had found his sock beneath her dresser when she'd gone to grab clean underwear. If he'd left a sock behind, it seemed possible he could have misplaced his keys too.

Still, there was something uneasy settling in her chest now, something cold and clammy that set her on edge. There was something wrong about all of this. Something she was missing.

Shaking it off as paranoia, Audrey dialled Nathan's number again. She hadn't even gotten the phone all the way to her ear before she heard it; a strain of classical music. They had been working together long enough that Audrey could recognize Nathan's ringtone when she heard it. It was Wagner, she remembered him telling her that once. He had a fondness for classical. No, the real question was why the hell she could hear it at all.

It seemed to be coming from down at the end of the car park, near his truck. Maybe he had dropped his phone while looking for his keys. As she walked closer to the Bronco she could tell her guess had been wrong; the cell phone wasn't on the ground near the truck, it was inside it. Well if he'd locked himself out that would explain why he wasn't answering any of her calls.

But no, he'd had his phone in her room last night. She remembered hearing it start ringing just as he was stripping her out of her jeans. Nathan had made a deep, irritated growl at the interruption and then promptly shut the phone off and tossed it on the floor. So how had it gotten into the truck?

The trepidation Audrey felt in her chest suddenly multiplied tenfold. There were just too many things here that weren't adding up. She jogged around to the driver's side of the truck and then her steps hesitated for the briefest second. The keys were stuck into the lock, Nathan's familiar keychain hanging against the door handle. When Audrey pulled at the door it swung open, clearly unlocked. There was a strange smell hanging in the air inside of the truck, strong and cloying. Definitely chemical. His cell phone was sitting on the driver's seat.

Audrey had just slammed the truck door shut again, intending to head straight to Nathan's house to double-check, when she spotted something that made her blood run cold. She knelt down and it put her level with a spot that stood out strongly against the truck's blue paint. A dark, smeared spot.

A spot that looked an awful lot like blood.


	7. Breaking the Curse

Darkness.

Nathan woke to darkness. His brain was fuzzy; he couldn't make sense of anything. Nothing but the dark.

Adrenaline immediately began to kick in. Nathan struggled but his body wouldn't move. There was something keeping him in place. It was only then that he realized he could feel his restraints; something cold and hard around his wrists and his ankles. That couldn't be right though, he wasn't supposed to be able to feel anything.

Nathan looked around but there was nothing but black. Wherever he was, it was completely devoid of light. He tried to call out but his mouth was covered and full of something that made it difficult to even move his tongue, and the most that came out of him was a muffled groan. He was trapped in the dark, unable to yell for help, unable to move, and strangely able to tell that he was being restrained.

His heart rate instantly jumped higher until it was pounding in his ears, so loudly that he couldn't hear anything but the frantic thumping. This only served to make him feel even more afraid. For a moment he was a seven-year-old boy again, lost and alone in the dark with no way to escape. Panic rolled through him and he fought against the cold metal around his wrists, trying to pull free and feeling the way it scraped against his skin.

The fact that he could feel it was just odd enough to slip through the terror in his mind. He wasn't supposed to be able to feel anything, not unless his Affliction had gone away. No, the only thing he could feel was Audrey.

Audrey.

The memories flooded back to him in a rush. He had been with Audrey through the night, he could remember that. It had been beautiful – perfect, even. Then he'd gone to get coffee for them, and… and…

Chloroform. He could remember the smell of it now, could taste it on the insides of his lips passed what tasted like material. Someone had chloroformed him when he'd been outside his truck and he'd fallen. That's right. So he'd been – abducted? Someone had taken him. But why would anyone want to kidnap him? Unless they'd been after Audrey.

Nathan tried to shout for her but the garbled noises he was making were barely audible to his own ears. If something had happened to him then he would deal with it and work it out, but he couldn't let something happen to Audrey. Not to his Audrey. He would do whatever it took to save her.

"Well look who finally decided to wake up."

A cool, lazy drawl sounded from somewhere far off to Nathan's left, and it seemed to echo around him. So he wasn't alone. He twisted his head in that direction but he couldn't make out anything through the darkness. There were the sounds of footsteps, surprisingly soft for belonging to such a curt voice, coming closer.

"Chief Wuornos," the voice said slowly, like it was tasting the words. The voice was definitely male, smooth and calculating and without any trace of the local New England accent. "I must admit I'm disappointed."

Nathan frowned, trying to place the voice, but it definitely wasn't anyone that he recognized. The steps stopped close by and he could hear the person shifting around on their feet, a coarse sound of leather scraping across something rough, like concrete perhaps.

"I mean the way he talked about you I was expecting someone, well, more. Especially from the chief of police in a town as unique as Haven. But so far this has been all too easy." There was a pause, and then, "Of course, Haven always leads to interesting jobs, that's for sure, and this is one place where you've proven yourself. Nathan Wuornos, the man who feels no pain."

There was a sudden stabbing pain in Nathan's stomach and he flinched, his body reflexively trying to shy away from the pain. He let out a strangled yelp that never made it passed the gag. His mind began racing. He could feel it. The pain redoubled as the sharp object slipped out of his skin again. There was a lingering pain radiating from the wound in his stomach, so unfamiliar that it set his nerves on edge.

How was this possible?

"Looks like they were wrong about that," the voice said with a shallow laugh. "You know it was all too easy to get around this curse thing. It's a crime that none of you figured it out before me, really. You people should be ashamed of yourselves."

This time it was a slice across his thigh, just deep enough to make Nathan's leg thrash in surprise. The man left the knife in this time, shifting it back and forth slowly so it pried the wound open further. Nathan couldn't stop himself from screaming into his gag.

"No, it was almost alarmingly simple," the man said, lifting the blade away. "I mean, really? A woman shows up in town and suddenly all of those dormant curses go haywire. The logical solution: get rid of the catalyst."

Nathan froze. The horror that had filled him at waking up in the dark was nothing to what he felt at the man's words. Audrey. She was the key to all of this. She was the one who could counter all of the Troubles. And this man had done something to her.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to yell and rage and pummel the man until he said what he'd done to Audrey. If he had hurt her, Nathan was going to kill him. He didn't care what happened to him, but if this man had hurt his Audrey then he would pay.

The man laughed again, a laugh that was cold but full of a dark mirth. It sent chills up Nathan's spine. "Oh right, I forgot how close the pair of you were," the man said in a voice that clearly stated he had forgotten no such thing. "Then it's time for the blindfold to come off, Chief Wuornos. I want to look you in the eye when I give you the news."

The darkness lifted and Nathan squinted against the blinding lights. It was like he was underneath an entire row of spotlights, all pointing directly at him. He had to squint through his lashes to be able to see at all, and he couldn't make out anything beyond the dazzling lights.

And then the face appeared. The man leaned down so his face was just inches from Nathan's, effectively blocking most of the light and making it so his face was all Nathan could see. A sneer twisted up his face as he spoke:

"I killed Audrey Parker."

Nathan scrutinized the man's face, looking for any of the tell-tale signs of a lie. His pupils did not dilate; his voice did not falter; his lips did not twitch. He was completely cool and confident, and Nathan could see no lie in him. Which meant, Audrey…

This time Nathan did yell and rage and try to attack the man. He fought against his bonds so hard that he felt the skin bruise and tear. He yelled himself hoarse even though the words never made it passed his lips. He did absolutely everything in his power to get free, to let this man know that he would suffer for what he had done.

And the only result was that the man's smile widened.

"Yes, I thought you might feel that way," he said casually. "Well either way, I have plenty of preparations I must finish before we get down to business. So how about we pick this up against later? Glad you agree."

Nathan caught the sweet smell just seconds before the white cloth was pressed over his nose. Even as he fought it, the heavy weight of unconsciousness crept back up and pulled him under once again.


	8. Searching

The Haven Police Department was in a state of upheaval. Even though there was no certain evidence of wrong doing yet, the possibility of the chief of police being kidnapped had sent the place into chaos.

Audrey felt like she had run a marathon already, and it was only ten in the morning. After she'd spotted the patch of blood on the side of Nathan's truck, she'd immediately jumped into the driver's seat and drove to Nathan's house. She had pounded on the door for a full five minutes before she'd climbed up a porch chair to get the spare key on top of the doorframe and broken in.

The place had looked exactly like it always did; frighteningly tidy for a single man but still somehow cosy. A battered paperback book was lying on the coffee table, his spare jacket hung on the hook by the door, and three split logs were resting in the fireplace grate, just waiting to be lit. Nothing looked out of place. She walked through the house, checking in every room for some sign of activity; discarded clothes, a coffee cup, anything.

She found nothing.

It was then that Audrey had gone to the police station. She checked in with Laverne first, to see if maybe Nathan had called in something on the radio. The older woman shook her head and stared at her suspiciously, prompting Audrey to tell her what she was worrying about. Laverne had instantly leapt into action, sending out a radio notice to the entire department that they were to keep their eye out for any sign of Nathan.

From there it hadn't taken much for the officers to grasp onto the situation. Audrey had called for a forensic officer to take a sample of the blood on Nathan's truck and check for a match, on the off-chance it had belonged to the attacker. While she waited for that, she had walked through town to check into several of Nathan's occasional haunts to see if they'd seen him. No one had.

As much as Audrey hadn't wanted it to happen, people started to panic. The town was still shaken from the abrupt death of the Chief, and adding in the mysterious disappearance of the new Acting-Chief only made things worse. After all, if even the police chiefs couldn't avoid danger then what chance did normal folk have? And the more other people panicked, the harder it was for Audrey to contain her own terror.

She had gone back into the station for a while to get a progress report. Even though they had no idea when this person had taken off with Nathan or where they'd been heading, they had constructed a roadblock around town. If this person was still in Haven then Audrey was determined as hell to keep them there until she could get her hands on them. The hospital had run a check on the blood sample and it had come back as Nathan's. Beyond that, they had learnt nothing new.

Frustrated, Audrey had shut herself up in their office. It looked the way it had when they had left the night before. Empty food containers were set on the floor beside the sofa, forgotten in their other activities. The pencil holder had been knocked from Nathan's desk by a pair of jeans that had been tossed aside and the cup was still sitting on the floor, pencils scattered across the hardwood. The files she had been working on were still stacked on her desk in a haphazard pile. Everything was there except him.

Audrey dropped down onto the sofa and pulled Nathan's coat tighter around her body. Wasn't this the way it always went for her? She let herself care about someone and then they get taken away from her. That seemed to be the way her entire life had gone, that's why she always worked so hard to not get attached. But somehow Nathan Wuornos had broken through that barrier and as soon as he'd settled in and made a place in her heart he'd been taken away again.

No, no she refused to sit around and feel bad for herself. Nathan could still be alive, he had to be. She wasn't going to lose him now. No faceless crook was going to come in and take away the best friend that she'd ever had. Not if she had anything to say about it.

Straightening up, she pulled up the zipper on the jacket and then left the station again. There was one more place she could check, one more person who might have seen something and who would care enough to help her.

The Grey Gull was already filling with its usual crowd of morning regulars. It was quiet and calm, and the restaurant was full of the pleasant hum of conversation. Audrey walked around the outer porch until she found Duke sitting in a patio chair behind the kitchens, staring out over the ocean and drinking his typical cup of morning tea.

"Well, well, well, Officer Parker," he said with a wide grin. "If you're not coming to arrest me then my morning will have just gotten brighter." Audrey didn't answer, just walked closer, and Duke took his feet down off the crate in front of him, surveying her curiously. "I'm noticing a distinct lack of sarcasm, which usually means trouble with a capital T. Wanna tell me what's going on?"

Audrey sank down onto the crate in front of Duke and forced herself to focus. She had to look at this as an officer, cool and clinical, or else she wouldn't be able to keep a clear head and she'd be no use to Nathan. "It's Nathan. He's gone missing."

Duke frowned. "You sure he's not just lurking somewhere?" he asked. "He is prone to angsty little fits of the sullens, you know."

"He's been kidnapped," Audrey said. "I need to find out who took him and where he's been taken."

"You don't think I did it, do you?" Duke said incredulously. "I mean, I hate Nathan as much as the next guy, but the last thing I want is to ship him away where I'd have to deal with him one on one."

Audrey managed to force a small smile at the comment. "I know," she said reassuringly. "But you haven't seen anything, have you? Someone new in town who looks suspicious? Maybe some unusual people meeting and talking?"

"It's Haven," Duke pointed out. "Always full of unusual people doing unusual things." Audrey arched an eyebrow at him. "But as to what you're referring to, no, I haven't seen anything out of sorts lately. Nothing but normal lunching people since you cleared up that mess with the birds down here last week." He set aside his teacup and fixed her with a more serious expression. "You think he's been kidnapped?"

"He wouldn't just disappear," Audrey said firmly. "No one has seen him, and when I went out to his truck this morning his keys were in the lock, his phone was inside, and there was blood on the door." Duke nodded but he still didn't look completely convinced. "You know him, Duke," she pressed earnestly. "You've known him for ages. He wouldn't just leave like this. Not with everything that's going on, he wouldn't just leave Haven. Not of his own choice."

There was something a bit remorseful in Duke's smile as he added, "And he would never leave you if he had any say in the matter." He nodded again and sat up straighter. "I'll keep my eyes and ears out for anything. Maybe I can get ahold of some of my old contacts and see if they know anything. We'll find him, Audrey. I promise."

Audrey nodded, trying to swallow back the lump that had formed in her throat. This was no time to get emotional, not when there was still so much to be done. "Thanks, Duke," she said. He reached out and, in an uncharacteristically compassionate moment, squeezed her hand gently. "Call me if you hear anything."

"Call me if you need a drink," Duke responded. "Martinis on the house, an Audrey Parker special discount." She gave him another grateful smile and then headed back to the truck. Now it was just back to rechecking everything they had already done to see if she could find anything they'd missed before.


	9. And So it Begins

Nathan could tell right away that something was different. His entire body felt tingly and cool, soft chills breaking out across his skin. Also his equilibrium was enough to tell him that he was no longer lying down. His arms were held above his head and his shoulders were aching at the strain of the angle. There was cold concrete beneath his bare feet, and when he pushed against it he could stand up. That made the pain in his shoulders ease, and he pried his eyes open to look around.

He was in a blank room of flat, grey concrete, apart from a few rust-coloured pipes peeking in and out of the wall in front of him. There were bright lamps staggered through the room, casting long shadows up the walls and across the floor in every direction. It wasn't a very large place, just a square room maybe twenty feet along each wall as far as he could tell. He was standing in the middle of the room. His mouth was unbound, but he didn't dare call out and draw attention to himself just yet. When he looked up he could see his arms pulled upward, a metal rod around his wrists attached to a shining chain that ran up to the ceiling. He glanced down and saw that there were leather straps around his ankles that were linked to a metal hoop in the floor. He was obviously not meant to be able to get very far.

Turning his head awkwardly, he looked around for the man. The man whose voice had spoken to him in the darkness before, the one who had caused him pain and who said that he had killed Audrey. He hadn't seen the man's face very well yet. When he was backlit by the bright lights Nathan had hardly been able to make out any of the details apart from light hair and a strong jaw line. As far as Nathan could see, he was alone for the moment.

Standing on his toes to give himself a little more slack, Nathan shook the chain to see if he could find out how it was attached. If it was on a hook, he might be able to get the chain off of it. The ceiling was far enough above him that he couldn't make out many of the details, but it looked like the same sort of solid loop that held the link between his ankles.

Changing tracks, he examined the restraints around his wrists. They were unlike anything he had seen, a thick metal bar with leather and metal cuffs attached to either end that were strapped around his wrists. The cuffs were pulled tight against his skin, the dense leather protecting his skin from the coarse metal rings, and buckled into place with a small padlock. He might have been able to find a way to undo the cuffs if he had been able to bring his hands together, but the metal bar between the cuffs prevented that.

Nathan dropped his head back down abruptly. Craning his head back like that was making the fuzziness still lingering at the front of his mind worse. He needed to be able to think clearly. He had to get out of this mess so he could get the man who had hurt Audrey.

Audrey. He didn't want to believe that she was gone, but he was finding it hard to keep up hope when he could feel every inch of his skin. It was so much more than just being able to feel the restraints now. He could feel the rub of his clothes against his skin, the pull and twist of his muscles, and the pain that was still lingering from the wound on his leg and in his side. He felt so completely human, and at the moment that was the most horrifying thing he could think of.

Nathan sucked at his swollen lip, feeling the place where it was split down the middle and still coated with dried blood. He spit the blood that was in his mouth out onto the floor and cleared his throat. It was dry and he wondered how long it had been since he'd had a drink of water. If he was going to escape, he needed to get out soon before the fatigue set in and made it too difficult to think clearly.

He squinted up at the hoop in the ceiling, wondering how well it was attached. If he could put enough force on it, maybe he could pull it out. Gripping onto his wrist restraints as best as he could, he lifted his feet from the ground the whole three inches the chains on his ankles would allow and let his full body weight hang. His wrists were screaming in protest, the too-tight leather rubbing on his skin and the bones in his wrist grating against each other. Every muscle in his body shook with effort of holding himself up by nothing more than his wrists. All of that pain and work, and the hoop in the ceiling didn't even look like it had budged.

A strangled gasp and several curse words slipped out as Nathan relaxed his muscles and let his feet hit the floor again, standing up and taking the pressure off his wrists. Obviously he wasn't going to be able to get that ring out of the ceiling any time soon. The links in the chain hadn't stretched; the bar between his wrists hadn't bowed. His restraints looked exactly as they had before.

"Damn it," Nathan cursed again and he tugged at the restraints angrily. He was Nathan Wuornos, chief of police in a town plagued by the Troubles. Getting out of some simple restraints shouldn't be so difficult for him.

"You shouldn't waste your time." The drawling voice was back, coming from somewhere behind him. Nathan hadn't heard any approaching footsteps, which he felt sure he should've heard on the cold concrete, and when he twisted his head around he still couldn't see the man. He wondered just how long the man had been standing there in his blind spot, watching him struggle. The man walked around to stand in front of Nathan, and he grinned sardonically. "You'll need that energy, it would be a shame to waste it all so early on."

"What did you do to Audrey?" Nathan growled.

The man's smile widened. He was a very plain looking man overall. He had hair the colour of damp sand and eyes that were a dull green. His skin was just a shade too dark to be considered pale, and he was dressed in a simple white dress shirt and black slacks. If it weren't for the dark excitement in his eyes he would've looked like an average middle aged man. "I've told you already. I killed her."

"You didn't," Nathan spat.

"You know that I did," the man replied calmly. "You can feel it all, can't you? Every inch of it. And you know that means she's gone. I killed her quickly, if that makes you feel better. It was so simple it was almost painless. I came into her room, after I took you. She was still asleep in that bed, still looked so pleasantly rumpled from all of your fun together. It was over so fast. Just one quick slit across the throat. It couldn't have taken more than two minutes for her to bleed out."

The man drew a short knife from a sheath at his belt, and when he held it up Nathan could see that the blade was stained, such a dark red that it was almost black. The man fingered the blade tenderly. "She was so beautiful, wasn't she?" he said pensively. "All of that soft porcelain skin, so pretty and pale. You can't even begin to imagine how wonderful she looked, twisted up in those blood-stained sheets. It was nothing short of a masterpiece."

Nathan wasn't even aware that he had started yelling. Rage and pain and fear all jumbled together and came out in a bestial scream. Hardly a second later the man hauled back and punched him in the stomach. Nathan slumped in the restraints as all of the air rushed out of him, making him choke and his eyes water. He hadn't even caught his breath before there was another hit to his sternum and his legs nearly buckled underneath him. The world spun around him a little as he gasped for air.

"That's much better," the man said in a lazy drawl. "I couldn't hear myself think over that racket. You know, I was rather hoping we'd be able to sit and chat while we did this, but clearly you're not in a conversational mood. Ah well, later then. We'll have plenty of time for chatting over the next few days."

Nathan tried to squint up through watering eyes but the man had walked out of his range of vision. A minute later Nathan's head was jerked back roughly and he felt a thick strip of cloth being forced between his teeth. The gag was tied tightly around his head, and then, after a loud ripping noise, a piece of duct tape covered his only partially closed mouth. With that finished, the man shoved his head so it snapped forward again, and his neck ached in protest.

"It's a shame you're so uncooperative though," the man continued as if there'd been no interruption. He walked back around in front of Nathan again, and this time he was hefting a black duffel bag with him. When he dropped it on the ground at his feet there was a discordant thumping sound as the contents shifted around. "I really prefer to get to know my subjects before we get around to experimenting. I mean, it seems rather rude that I haven't even been able to introduce myself yet." He smiled; a calm, charming smile that seemed conflicted not only with the situation but with the dark, deep look in his eyes. "So before we get started, my name's John. And I must say it is a pleasure to meet you, Chief Wuornos."

The man knelt and opened the duffel bag, and then he withdrew a short wooden beam. It was only about a foot long, just a plain, solid wooden cylinder with a diameter no bigger than an inch and a half. John hefted it experimentally and eyed Nathan. "Now that we're done with the pleasantries, it's time to get to business," he said.

He swung the wooden beam and it collided with Nathan's stomach, knocking all the air from him again and leaving his skin stinging. Nathan bit down on the cloth gag to stop himself from shouting out. That's what the man wanted; he wanted to cause Nathan pain. Well two could play at that game, and Nathan was determined not to give him the satisfaction. Instead John only seemed to smile wider. "A brave man, Nathan Wuornos," he said appraisingly. "I respect that. Let's see how long it takes for you to break then, shall we?"

His stomach, his arms, his legs, his back. Nothing was out-of-bounds to John as he swung the wooden beam with a practised ease. After each hit he would pause and wait expectantly, and each time that Nathan swallow back his screams John would smile again. A little while later he switched the wooden beam for a metal pipe. It made the impact and the pain worse, and Nathan wondered whether his pride or his bones would break first. Bruises were already covering his skin from the abuse.

The pipe was switched out for a wooden baseball bat. Little lights had started to blossom behind Nathan's eyes and each new impact made them brighter, blocking out more of his vision. A blow to the back of his calf made his legs give in, and as all of his weight fell onto his arms, his shoulder was wrenched out of the socket. One strangled yelp made it halfway out of his mouth before darkness swept in and everything else disappeared.


	10. Time Circles Around

Duke really wished that he could say this had never happened before. He wanted nothing more than to have this been the first time he had ever been in this situation, but it wasn't. One of the perils of living in a little coastal town, he supposed.

He had just stepped out onto his deck to get a bit of fresh air. It had been an exhausting day, all of it starting with Audrey showing up at the Gull first thing in the morning to tell him that Nathan had been kidnapped. It seemed so impossible, but he'd never seen Audrey that worked up before and he knew she didn't get emotional over nothing. So, like he'd promised Audrey he would, Duke had spent the entire day making phone calls to old contacts and setting up meetings to get information. He normally could have handled it all well, but dealing with so many of them in one day took a lot out of a person, even him.

The truth was that Duke was a lot more scared than he wanted to admit. Nathan had always been an unshakable force in Haven. He was the one who stood up through everything, had stayed and fought when Duke had bolted. Even with everything that had happened lately, with Audrey and the Chief and Max Hansen, Nathan had taken it all in stride and moved on. The fact that he was now gone was frightening in itself, but it didn't help any that they had just begun to repair their tentative friendship. Finally, after all of this time, Duke might have gotten his best friend back just to lose him again.

That was the reason Duke was now standing on his deck in the middle of the night, sipping from a beer bottle. He hadn't been able to sleep, his mind full of a thousand things, none of which he actually wanted to think about. After tossing and turning for several hours, he had given sleep up as a lost cause and stepped out to stretch his legs in the dark. His brain was still whirring, but at least while he was moving around he could focus it down a little better than when it washed over him every time he closed his eyes.

Who could have kidnapped Nathan? Was it something personal? Or was it because of his new position? There hadn't been much dissent in town when Nathan had been elected the new acting-chief of police. It only made sense, after all. He was easily the most well-equipped for the job, especially with Audrey at his side. Between the two of them crime in Haven just didn't stand a chance, Troubled or normal. So was this someone trying to make a statement? Say that even the big bad chief couldn't stand up against everything?

None of it made any sense. Had Nathan really made that big of an enemy? Sure, he wasn't exactly the most personable guy. But kidnapping? That sounded like something that would happen to Duke, not Nathan. In fact, it was something that had happened to Duke. More than once.

Shaking his head, Duke tipped back some more of his beer and walked over to the edge of the boat, leaning on the railing. He had just glanced down at the dark water between the ship's edge and the dock when he spotted something that made his blood run cold. A hand, floating in the water, ghostly white against the inky black water.

Duke dropped his beer and leapt over the side of the ship, landing ungracefully on the dock. As soon as he'd regained his footing, he dove into the water. It was cold, and he gasped at the shock of it the moment his head broke the surface again. In sure, steady strokes he swam beneath the wooden dock towards where he could make out a body floating in the eddy. Distractedly, he realized this was far from the first time he'd found a body in the water.

Seizing the body around the chest, he began swimming awkwardly toward the beach. The body was heavy, dead-weight slowing him down as he fought to keep moving. It felt like it must have been ages before he finally reached the spot where the land began to curve upward and he was able to stand, dragging the body across sand and grass. Once they were a safe distance from the lapping waves, he laid the body down and finally took a good look.

It was a man, probably close to his own age, and he was wearing only a pair of grey underwear. His skin was pale and his lips were slightly blue. Duke put a hand to his throat and checked for a pulse but he couldn't find one. Judging by the stiffness in the body and the blue tinge to his skin, this guy was dead and had been for a while.

Standing up and repressing a very unmanly urge to vomit, Duke staggered to the dock phone and dialled a familiar number. It rang three times before a weary, "Parker," responded.

"Hey Audrey, it's Duke," he said, only now noticing that his teeth were chattering, making him sound like he had a stutter. "You said to call you if I found anything odd and, well, I did."

"On my way," Audrey said and then she hung up before he could say anything more. Duke stood around awkwardly, wondering what to do and trying not to stare at the half-naked corpse on the ground. Finally he couldn't stand it anymore and he grabbed one of the loose tarpaulins that usually covered smaller boats and draped it over the body. At least that way he didn't have to look at it.

It couldn't have been five minutes before he heard sirens and Audrey parked Nathan's blue Bronco at a slightly terrifying angle in the lot beside the marina. She jumped out of the driver's seat and jogged over to him. She was still wearing the same clothes he'd seen her in that morning, including Nathan's faded jacket, and she looked worn and tired as if she hadn't had a moment's rest. Which he told himself was probably true. It didn't seem likely that Audrey would just go to sleep while Nathan was missing.

"What is it?" she asked once she was in earshot.

"Dead body," Duke answered, pointing to the tarpaulin. "It washed up under the dock. I tried to save him, but he looks like he might have been dead way before I even saw him."

"It's not Nathan, is it?" she asked and her voice was shaking worse than his. Duke shook his head firmly. Audrey seemed to deflate slightly even as she looked relieved. "So who is it?"

"I dunno," Duke said with a shrug. "That's your job, isn't it?"

Audrey must have been very tired, because she didn't even bother with a sarcastic response before she pulled out her cell phone. Duke listened to her call for an ambulance, and when she'd hung up she went over to investigate the body. "No clothes, no ID," she said. "We'll have the morgue ID him when he gets there."

"Think it's got anything to do with Nathan being gone?" Duke asked. The question had been burning in his mind since the moment he'd found the body and he couldn't hold it back any longer. "I mean, Nathan goes missing and then the same day a body washes up on the beach. That can't be a coincidence, right?"

"If we were anywhere else I would say it could be a coincidence," Audrey said. "But this is Haven. I really just don't know."

The ambulance showed up at that point, and Audrey and Duke retreated up onto the dock as the EMTs bagged and loaded off the corpse. Duke wrapped his arms around himself, trying not to shiver as the coastal breeze tugged at his wet clothes. Audrey must have noticed because she said, "You should go get changed before you get sick."

"Come have a beer," Duke said. Audrey tried to protest but he talked over her. "Please, Audrey, we both know you're not going to sleep and neither am I. Come back and have a beer with me. Just until they call you with that guy's ID." She looked like she might argue again but then she nodded and followed him back to the ship. Duke handed her a beer before he slipped into his room and changed into some dry clothes, towelling off his damp skin. When he came back out onto the deck with a towel still slung around his neck, Audrey was curled on one side of his favourite orange settee, staring out over the water and looking distracted.

"How are you holding up?" Duke asked, grabbing a beer and then walking over to join her.

"I'm still moving," she said dryly but there was no trace of a smile on her lips.

Duke surveyed her thoughtfully. He had known there was something more between Audrey and Nathan than they let on, that much was obvious. The look on her face now though, it was something akin to heartbreak. It occurred to him that maybe there was more than even he had guessed. Were they in love? Or was this just some deep attachment rooted from their similar social issues? No, this was more. This was something more - permanent. No matter what it was, losing Nathan was tearing Audrey apart.

"We'll find him," Duke said, trying to sound confident.

Audrey grimaced. "Did you know that in ninety percent of all abduction cases, if the victim isn't found within the first twenty-four hours than the likelihood of them still being alive drops exponentially with each consecutive hour?" Duke hadn't known that, and he really didn't like the way this conversation was going. "He disappeared some time between three and seven a.m. That means that his twenty-four hours is nearly up already."

"To hell with statistics," Duke said roughly. "This is Haven; it doesn't fall into the normal numbers. And it's Nathan. Nothing beats Nathan. Trust me, I've tried. We'll find him, just you wait. We're gonna find him."

Audrey turned to look up at him, and in the dim light he could see that her eyes were watering and her lower lip seemed to be trembling slightly. Something inside of Duke broke and he immediately reached over to wrap an arm around her shoulders. For once Audrey didn't shrug away the contact. Instead she curled into his side and buried her face in his collar, and Duke held her against him until her sobs faded into a broken rhythm of sleep.

He carried her into his cabin and laid her on the bed, tucking her beneath the covers. The last time he'd done that he hadn't even known who she was. He had jumped in the water to drag her body out then too, just like he'd done to that dead man tonight. He'd had no idea who she was the last time he had tucked Audrey Parker into his bed. This time, he knew that he would do anything to make her happy again.

They were going to find Nathan, no matter what it took. He would make sure of it.


	11. Cut and Slice

Music. Nathan's brain struggled to process what he was hearing. It was music; classic, heavy piano and organ music. Dark and full of anger and passion. Suspicion and deception. Rachmaninov maybe.

That made no sense. He was feeling pain through every molecule of his body, but he was hearing music. The last he remembered, there had been just the pain. Strong, bludgeoning pains across his body. Everywhere. It had been just hit after hit until he'd passed out.

Prying his eyes open, he looked around and tried to figure out what had changed. He could feel something flat against his body, all the way down his back. Laying down on something. He was lying on his back on something cool and flat, metallic maybe. His clothes were missing as well, everything but his thin boxers. His wrists and ankles were bound to the table with more wide straps of leather. Even if he'd been capable of trying to fidget around, which the blasts of pain effectively stopped when he tried, he couldn't get free.

Nathan twisted his head around as far as it would go, taking in his surroundings. Above him was a dull grey ceiling, blank and flat concrete. The spotlights that he had seen the first time he'd woken up were staggered around the table he lay on, tilted at a lower angle so they weren't blinding him. To his left he could see the chain and bar that hung from the ceiling, where he'd been when he'd blacked out. To his right he could see a simple metal stand, with a clear IV bag hanging from it. His eyes followed the IV until it disappeared into the crook of his elbow.

What was that stuff? Was he being drugged? No, that didn't make much sense either. He didn't feel drugged, he felt - aware. More lucid and less shaky than he had before. Was it some sort of steroid being pumped into his system?

And where the hell was that music coming from?

"Welcome back." Nathan instinctively growled at the voice, the slow, casual drawl that he had heard far too much of over the last - however long it had been. "You held out far longer than I would've expected of you, Nathan. It must have been so fascinating for you, being able to feel all of that pain. In that way, I suppose you should be thanking me for this, shouldn't you?"

Nathan wanted to tell the man exactly what he thought but a thick gag in his mouth stopped him from making anything more than choked mumbles. It wasn't the cloth and tape from before, he noticed distractedly. It was bigger, a strap around his head with a larger foam cylinder wedged between his teeth. He could hardly even move his tongue beneath the pressure of it.

"You and I have a lot in common, you know," the man - John, he had said his name was - continued conversationally. "Music, for instance. I happen to know that you're a fan of classical as well. Your favourite is Wagner, isn't it?" Nathan couldn't hide his surprise and alarm at this. How did this man know so much about him? "I prefer Rachmaninov myself, or Tchaikovsky. No one really appreciates the beauty of the classical composers anymore. The power, the passion, the genius. It's such a shame."

John finally stepped into Nathan's view. He was still wearing his same casual clothes, looking perfectly put-together and completely at odds with the scene. "It truly is a pleasure to work these experiments with such a cultured man," John said breezily. "I never expected such intellect from a small town policeman. But then, you are no ordinary man, are you? And this is certainly not an ordinary town."

The man walked around to Nathan's other side and touched the IV appraisingly, reading off the measurement on the side of the bag. When he saw Nathan watching him he smiled and tapped the IV stand. "Have to keep you healthy, don't I?" John said. "Nutrients and water in a bag. The world of modern medicine really is fascinating. You can live off of this stuff for weeks. No thirst, no malnourishment. I don't want you getting weak and missing out on any of our fun."

Fun was not exactly the word that Nathan would use, and the fact that John used it sincerely frightened him. There was no doubt in his mind that this man was certifiably insane. As if he hadn't guessed that a long time ago.

"There's a good deal of argument on the exact number of types of torture," John said. He spoke evenly and projected like he was teaching a class. It vaguely reminded Nathan of the comic book villains who always insisted on monologuing at length before trying and failing to kill the superhero. Except Lex Luthor had never made Nathan's blood run cold in his veins. "It's such a variable topic. Everything really depends on your perspective. I have a few favourites that I love to explore though. Blunt is always the first. It's the most mundane, really, but it's also the most common. Blunt force trauma. Beating and bruising. We see that sort of thing out on the streets every day.

"Then there are the more refined forms. Sharp; blades and knives, cutting and slashing and stabbing. Heat is always so interesting, the way skin sears and bubbles and burns like hot wax. Cold is less exciting to me, but it does serve to be so very painful. The way the cold makes you ache clean through to your bones, that is an all-encompassing agony. And then of course there are always the more imaginative variations. Water torture, isolation, twists and pulls. Electricity is effective. Starvation is used a lot but I don't enjoy it. It takes away from the enjoyment too much. Then there's always sadism, another I'm not fond of but that I've used in the past." He met Nathan's eyes and chuckled. "Never fear, Nathan, you are not my type. I've only used that once before, on a particularly fiery little lass on the west coast. It was almost magical, I could actually see the moment her spirit broke, right there in her eyes."

Nathan growled again around the gag. This man was a rapist, had taken advantage of a young girl and violated her in the worst ways, and now he stood there talking about it like it was some fascinating science project. John made no sign that he'd heard the sound.

"There is so much we can explore together, Nathan," John said. "I'll be able to introduce you to so many exhilarating new sensations. For now, now we'll move on to sharp." John tugged the IV from Nathan's elbow and bandaged it with a piece of cotton and a strip of white medical tape. Then he walked to the end of the room above Nathan's head, where he couldn't see. When the man came back he was carrying a stool and a black briefcase. He laid the case on top of the stool and opened it up. Nathan couldn't see much, but he caught several distinct flashes of silver.

"I think we'll start small," John said pensively, running his fingers across the contents of the case. He paused and then lifted a scalpel, the sort they used in hospitals. "This is a nice place to start. Simple and elegant. Most people prefer to start right with the hacking and slashing, but I like this approach better. Less damage and just as much of a point."

With a look of intense concentration, John touched the blade to Nathan's stomach. Nathan instinctively tried to flinch away but there wasn't anywhere to go. The blade split his skin almost too easily. Nathan bit down on the gag to stop himself from shouting as the scalpel dragged across his abdomen. When John lifted the blade it was bright crimson.

"Already so many scars," John said and he touched a thick white knot on Nathan's shoulder. He could remember where that one had come from. A bullet wound, from the very first case he had worked with Audrey. "How would it be, to experience so much pain and injury but feel none of it?" The scalpel came down and sliced straight through the middle of the scar. "To be like a ghost, moving through the world but being unaffected by it."

The words hurt as much as the sporadic cuts that were being laid across his flesh. It was true; it was the way that he had felt at times. As the man who was numb, he had been separated from the world. A part of it and yet not a part of it. For years he had existed without contact to the world around him, until he'd met Audrey. She brightened his world, gave him new experiences and touches that he had not felt in so long. So long that he'd actually forgotten; how it felt to shake a hand, to hug, to grip a reassuring hand, to kiss. To make love.

She had been his connection to the real world, and this man had taken that away from him. Audrey was gone. And he could feel everything again. His chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with the abuse. He would gladly take the numbness back if it meant that he could hold Audrey again. Even if it meant he never felt again. She was worth more.

Nathan wondered if some of his thoughts had shown on his face when the man said, "Unaffected by everything except Audrey Parker." Nathan glared up at the man's face, daring him to go ahead and talk about his partner. The woman that he'd killed. "Oh the news is all over Haven, about how the pretty young FBI agent wormed through the barriers around the hard-faced Nathan Wuornos. Even without the magic that made her touch you, there was an emotional attachment between you. You loved her, didn't you?"

With a hard scowl, Nathan closed his eyes. He refused to give this man what he wanted. It didn't matter. "You did. I can see it in your face. You loved her. That's why you proved it to her that night, isn't it? The way you claimed her, made her yours right there in the middle of your office. I must say that was a bold move. And the irony is pure beauty. The night that you claimed her, she was taken away from you." John sighed, and as he did he dragged the scalpel across Nathan's thigh, right where the skin was most sensitive. He nearly swallowed his own tongue trying to keep back the groan. "It's like something out of Shakespeare, isn't it?"

The next cut went up the other thigh, dangerously close to his groin. He didn't even want to imagine the agony that would come from that. "You know what you need?" John asked. "Some token to prove your love. Yes, that's how all the stories go. You need some dramatic show of just how much you loved her. And I have just the idea for that."

Nathan opened his eyes in horror and watched as the man walked around to his left side. Leaning in over him, the man began to cut into his chest. Unlike the cuts before, this wasn't just one long cut. There were multiple cuts, going in different directions, some of them even curving a little. When John had finished he straightened up and smirked. "Beautiful," he declared. "You have to see this, you'll appreciate it." John left and then came back, hefting a wide hand mirror. He held it up over Nathan's chest and then tilted it until he could actually see what had been carved into his chest. The image was backwards in the reflection, but he could still easily read the word bleeding out above his heart.

Audrey

"Isn't it magnificent?" John asked and he set the mirror aside. "Her name forever etched above your heart. Now if that isn't a dramatic show of passion then I don't know what is." Nathan wanted very badly to say that this man clearly had no idea what love was, but the sight of her name in his flesh had shaken him to his core far more than he wanted to admit. "Alright, enough with the light stuff," John said and his tone had become suddenly business-like. "Let's kick it up a notch, shall we?"

The blade that descended toward him this time was much larger than the medical scalpel, the sort of knife that looked more suited for a kitchen. Nathan closed his eyes and gritted his teeth around the foam cylinder, bracing himself for the pain.


	12. Jigsaw Pieces

The ringing of her phone made Audrey jerk awake, blinking around in confusion. Her surroundings were unfamiliar, definitely not her bedroom or the office, but somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that she'd been in this place before. Her phone chirped again and she reached over, grabbing it off of the worn wooden side table. "Parker," she answered briskly.

"Hey Audrey," Julia Carr's voice responded. "I was told to call you as soon as we got the ID on this guy."

"What did you find out?" Audrey asked, immediately sitting upright. The nerves rushed in and chased away the last of the grogginess.

"His name's Michael Stauffer, 34," Julia recited. "Cause of death wasn't drowning though. Looks like cardiac arrest by the damage to his heart. There was no trace of oedema, so he was definitely dead before he was put in the water. Probably died and then someone dumped him in the ocean to get rid of the body."

"So we think murder?" Audrey asked suspiciously.

"Well either murder or this guy had a heart attack and fell off his boat," Julia offered hopefully. "But considering this is Haven, I honestly couldn't tell you. There was also some faint bruising around his bicep, might be from an attacker."

Audrey sighed and nodded. "Anything else you can tell me about him? Give me a place to start asking questions?"

"He was an orderly at the Haven Regional, if that helps," Julia said. "Other than that, he's unmarried and has no roommates or family in the area. According to his records, he's pretty new to town himself."

"Alright, thanks Julia," Audrey said and then hung up. She looked around and this time her location finally clicked. It was Duke's cabin and she was tucked into the bed. That's why it seemed distantly familiar, because she'd been in this same position before. Only at least this time she wasn't naked.

Climbing out of the bed, she walked out onto the deck. Duke was sitting in his same little orange settee where they'd been last night, his legs propped up on a rickety table and a newspaper covered in Asian script in his lap. Again, eerily like the first time they'd met. Duke appeared to be half-conscious and she wondered if he had slept at all last night. When she came closer he started and then looked up at her.

"Any news?" he asked in lieu of a greeting.

"We got a name for the guy you found," Audrey said. "An orderly up at the hospital. He wasn't drowned either, he was killed and then dumped."

Duke nodded thoughtfully. "Does that connect him to Nathan any way?"

"Not that I can think of," Audrey admitted and dragged a hand through her hair wearily. "Nathan and I were at the hospital the afternoon before he disappeared, but I don't recognize the guy. The only person we talked to there was a female nurse. But still, it's a start. I'm going to go make a call."

Audrey stepped out onto the dock where she had better phone service. The number for the Haven Regional hospital was one that she had become unfortunately familiar with since coming to town. It rang twice before someone picked up.

"Haven Regional hospital, how may I direct your call?" a bored-sounding woman drawled into the phone.

"This is Detective Parker with the Haven PD," Audrey said and tried to inject more power into her voice than she actually felt. After all, if she couldn't even keep her own partner safe, what authority did she really have? "I need the files on one of your employees."

The woman on the other end gave a nervous hum. "Well you'd need to talk to Mr. Egris in personnel, and he's not in until seven."

"Is there anyone else who can help me?" Audrey asked impatiently. "This is urgent police business."

"Sorry officer," the woman said. "The only ones with the ability to access employee files are the hospital administrators, and none of them are here before seven. But if you want, I can put you through to his voice machine, and he'll get the message as soon as he gets in."

Audrey sighed irritably but gave the okay. There was a click, a dial tone, and then a man's voice said, "This is Bud Egris. I'm not in my office right now, but leave a message and I will try to get back to you."

"Mr. Egris, this is Detective Audrey Parker with Haven PD," Audrey rattled off. "I need copies of your files for an employee, an orderly named Michael Stauffer. Have them sent to the station please. Thanks for your cooperation," she added as an afterthought, trying to soften the command slightly.

With that done she stuffed the phone back into her pocket and went back to join Duke. She sat down next to him on the settee, and when he offered her a cup of his herbal tea she accepted it gratefully. She wasn't much of a tea drinker usually, but she'd take anything that might help her stay awake and clear her head.

"Nothing good I take it?" Duke asked.

"Not until seven o'clock," Audrey said, not able to keep the bitterness entirely from her voice. "That's when all of the hospital big-wigs finally get into the office to help."

Duke frowned into his tea. "Can't you just demand it? March in there and make them let you into their files or something?"

Audrey chuckled dryly. "You watch too many cop shows," she informed him. "Besides, I can't do that without a judge's warrant, and he's never out of bed before nine." Duke furrowed his brow. "Not everyone in Haven is down with greeting the day quite as early as you do, Buddha boy."

This finally managed to coax a small smile out of Duke. "Not hard to get up early when you don't go to sleep to begin with," he said offhandedly. "I couldn't sleep to save my life last night. Too much in my head, I guess."

"Thoughts in your head?" Audrey asked sarcastically. "That's a rarity."

"Tell me about it," Duke agreed unashamedly. "I really prefer just going along as things happen instead of all of this thinking and wondering. Not to mention I've now seen enough bodies floating in the water to fuel nightmares for the rest of my life."

Audrey nodded in understanding. She didn't even want to think about all of the horrifically destroyed bodies that she'd seen in all of her years of law enforcement. They had a tendency to creep up into her dreams whenever she was stressed and haunted her, reminding her of the victims that she hadn't been able to save. She didn't want to even think about adding Nathan to that group. No, she would save him. She had to.

"I can't just sit here and wait," she said suddenly, standing up and fidgeting. She needed to be moving, needed to feel like she was accomplishing something. "I'm going to go up to the morgue and talk to Julia some more about this, see if I can find anything that might give me a clue."

"Okay," Duke said and he stood up too. When she walked out onto the dock again he followed her, but she didn't say anything to stop him. Even if she knew he wouldn't be that much help with the case, she wouldn't turn away his company. The gaping hole left behind by Nathan's absence was making her feel weak and vulnerable. Having Duke fill the spot for just a while was equally unsettling and reassuring.

The steady purr of Nathan's old Bronco was the only noise between them as they drove toward the morgue. Duke was stiff and uncomfortable in the passenger seat, his eyes heavy as he stared out the windscreen. She could tell that he hadn't slept much, if at all, and she wondered how long they both could go before they'd collapse. Audrey told herself she only needed to keep going until she found Nathan. She would find Nathan and get him home safely, and then she would sleep for a week straight, curled up next to him so she could make sure he wouldn't disappear again. She'd handcuff them together if she had to.

The morgue was a separate smaller building set behind the hospital. Audrey and Duke walked in to find Julia standing over a pale body, a scalpel in hand as she worked on an autopsy. She didn't look surprised to see them, just kept working. "This definitely wasn't an accident," she said, her gloved fingers probing through the opening in the man's chest. "I was going to call you as soon as I finished here. This man was killed very deliberately."

"You've found more then?" Audrey asked, walking into the autopsy room. Duke followed behind her hesitantly.

"I've given him a more thorough investigation and it's turned up a lot of minor bruising I missed at first glance," Julia said through the paper mask on her face. "Most of it is post-mortem, probably from his swim in the ocean, but there is some peri-mortem bruising as well. Specifically, a pretty sizeable blow to the back of the head, right at the base of the skull."

"So he was knocked unconscious by someone," Audrey concluded and Julia nodded.

"And then there's this," she said and twisted the man's arm so the inside of his elbow was visible. There was faintly green bruising inside of it, and in the centre of that was a pinprick hole right above the blue-tinged vein.

"A needle?" Audrey asked. "He was injected with something."

"I thought maybe it was drugs at first, an OD would explain the heart damage, but the tox screen came back completely clean," Julia said. "I've looked closer at his heart now and found out what it was that made it stop; an overflow of oxygen in the chambers."

"Someone injected oxygen into his veins," Audrey said, awed at the realization.

"Putting all of the pieces together, it looks like someone jumped him and knocked him out with a blow to the head," Julia explained. "And then after that they injected him with a syringe full of air. Once his heart had stopped, they dumped him in the water to get rid of him."

"This isn't just a random crime then," Audrey said. "This was planned out, methodical. For some reason someone really wanted to make sure that this guy was out of the way."

"Maybe they just wanted his pretty pink scrubs," Duke chipped in sarcastically, looking anywhere but at the body.

"It is a little weird that his clothes are missing," Julia agreed. "Usually that means a sexual assault case but there's no damage to converge with that."

Audrey's eyes suddenly widened. "No, Duke's right," she said.

"I am?" Duke asked in surprise.

"They wanted his work uniform," Audrey said. "And his ID card. With them someone could've gotten into the hospital without alerting any attention. No one pays much attention to the orderlies. They are free to move around the hospital, and with the right clothes and an ID badge he could get in and do whatever he needed without anyone being the wiser."

"But why?" Julia asked. "What's the point of being able to get into a hospital?"

"Nathan and I were at the hospital the afternoon before he was taken," Audrey said. "We were up there for the police blood drive." She looked down at the man on the table and then back up at Julia. "Do you have a time of death?"

"I can't be one-hundred-percent sure, the cold water would've preserved his body better, but I would say he's probably been dead about two days, maybe three," Julia said.

"Which means this guy was dead before Nathan was taken," Audrey said. "So whoever killed this guy could've been in the hospital the same time we were there."

"Why though?" Duke said. "What's the point of all the sneaking?"

"I don't know yet," Audrey said but none of the spark had gone from her eyes. She was positive that this was a clue, a connection, and she wasn't going to rest until she found out what it meant. "This guy's been one step ahead of us from the beginning. I think it's time we get ahead of him. C'mon Duke, we're going to sit up there in the administration office until they get there. We need that file and we need it now. We need to find out the last time that Michael Stauffer's ID card was used to check into the hospital, because I'm betting it was after he died."


	13. Playing with Fire

Nathan wished that he had passed out again. It was so much easier when he could black out and wake up when the worst of the pain was over, but he was out of luck this time. The drugs and nutrition that John had fed into his body had served to make him more conscious and aware, which meant that he was more able to stand up beneath the torture. So this time he was awake for every single slice and stab that had been inflicted. His world had only just started to blur at the edges when John stopped.

"Wasn't that exciting?" John asked rhetorically, pulling a piece of white cloth from his pocket and using it to wipe the blood off the blade of the serrated knife he had been using most recently. "So many different pains, so many different pleasures."

Nathan didn't even bother with a muffled response this time. His jaw was aching from biting down on the gag so hard and his throat burnt with the effort of swallowing back screams. The pain that peppered the rest of his body was rolling over him in waves, tugging at his mind but never hard enough to actually pull him away. He just wanted it to end.

But he couldn't let it end. Not yet. This man had killed his Audrey, and he still had to pay for that. Nathan still had to punish him for what he'd done. When Nathan got his hands on this man, all of the torture he'd inflicted would feel like nothing to the pain Nathan would cause him. He was positive of that.

John was humming along with the music in the background, which was now playing Chopin. He put away the knives, and then pulled out a new case. Nathan almost felt relief. If he was going to keep inflicting pain then it wouldn't be long before Nathan was able to slip away into the place in the back of his mind where the hurt faded. Instead he saw John lift a roll of bandages and a needle. When he met Nathan's surprised look he smiled. "Have to patch you up," he explained. "Can't have you bleeding out on me."

Nathan rolled his eyes towards the heavens and braced himself. Of course, John would mend him just to break him apart again. He tried not to move or show pain as John mercilessly jabbed the needle into his injuries while stitching them shut. Some of them had bandages wrapped over the cuts after they'd been stitched. The place where Audrey's name had been carved into his chest was covered with thick gauze, held in place by medical tape. It occurred to Nathan distantly that this man was very adept at bandaging and stitches. Either he'd known how to do it before becoming a torturer, or he'd just done it to so many people that he'd learned by doing. Nathan wasn't sure which seemed more likely.

"There, now that the bleeding is dealt with," John said, giving Nathan a satisfied once-over, "time to replace what's missing and we'll be good to go again in no time." He disappeared from Nathan's sight again, and when he came back he was pushing two IV stands, which he set up on either side of the table. Both stands held bags of dark crimson liquid. Blood. John hooked up an IV to each of Nathan's arms, bandaging the needles in place. "Alright, I'll just give it a little while to fill you back up and then we'll move onto something else. Maybe we'll try something imaginative this time."

With that John walked away and the music shut off. Nathan was left to himself in the quiet, listening to nothing but the occasional drip as blood rolled from the table onto the floor. The fogginess that was overlaying his vision was already starting to fade as the blood loss was counteracted. He was tempted to try and nudge the IVs from his skin, but his arms were held out away from his body and he had no way to reach them. Even if he could, he hated to admit he needed his strength. He would never be able to escape and get his revenge on this guy if he was too weak to even stand upright. And he had to avenge Audrey.

Audrey. He would never see her again. They had finally taken that chance on each other, finally come completely together as one, and now she was gone. Taken away from him just as he'd truly had her. He closed his eyes against the glare of the spotlights and thought of her. Imagined her the way that he had last seen her; her golden hair spread out across the pillows in tangled curls, her blue eyes dark and smouldering, her rose petal lips swollen and she bit down on the lower one as she gazed up at him. All of that smooth, white, porcelain skin wrapped around lean muscles. Long, limber legs that locked around his hips in a firm hold, so strongly that he couldn't have escaped even if he wanted to. Her pale arms pulling him ever closer, one hand tugging at his hair and the other clawing at his back just painfully enough to feel pleasurable. He recounted every motion they'd made together, every ghost of her lips on his skin, every muscle that had flexed around his own. The beautiful, euphoric climax when every barrier between them had been blasted away and they were completely and totally joined. And then the gentle, comforting perfection of lying tangled in the sheets, holding her body against as they dozed and feeling her heart beat against him.

He would cling to that memory with everything that he had. Audrey Parker was his happy place; his utopia. She would help him survive this, so he would live to avenge her death. He closed his eyes to capture the image, holding onto the memory and immersing himself in it.

A heavy pressure on his eyes woke Nathan from the semi-conscious haze he'd slipped into. He tried to force his eyes open but they were stuck, something making it hard to open them. Whatever it was pulled and tugged at his skin when he tried to move. His heart lurched.

"Good morning, Nathan." John's voice loomed out of the darkness, very close to his ear. He instinctively jerked his head away. "You just love the dark, don't you?" John said sarcastically.

Nathan tried to take himself back to that memory of Audrey, but John's breath on the side of his face, smelling strongly of cinnamon, kept him grounded in reality. Despite his attempts, his pulse began to spike again. It was completely ridiculous to be afraid of the dark when he was being held captive by a psychopath, but he couldn't stop himself from reacting the same as always.

"Every man has his weakness," John said. "Achilles' heel. Who knew that the great Nathan Wuornos is afraid of something as silly as the dark? Lost deep in the shadows, waiting to be saved. Even now when he can feel, the dark still makes him whimper like a schoolgirl."

Nathan pressed his eyes shut further, telling himself that the darkness was only of his own doing. It was only dark because he chose to let it be. It wasn't forced on him, pressing down on him and keeping him trapped away from the light.

"It's too bad that I didn't have the proper time to prepare or we could've taken this even further," John said and it sounded like there was genuine regret in his voice. "I could have built a chamber, a complete blackout chamber that you could curl up in. It would've been such a thrill, watching you thrash around in that chamber looking for a way out of the dark. It could've been just like being trapped in your father's attic all those years ago."

Once again, Nathan wondered how this man knew so much about him. He was talking about things that Nathan had never told anyone. No one except Audrey. So how did he know these private secrets? Was he a mind-reader? Was he a Troubled person and that was his gift? To see into people's thoughts so he could use them against them?

"Yes, that would have been fun but the blindfolds will have to suffice for now," John said. "Perhaps I can start working on that though, so we can experiment with that later. I will have to see." There were some shuffling and clanking noises. "For now though, we're going to play with fire. We'll just touch on the basics today, because really I'm using it for an ulterior purpose. Need to cauterize those wounds so you don't get infected."

There was a click and then the hiss of a torch. Nathan could feel the heat even as the cloying smell of hot metal reached his nose, churning bile in his stomach. He wasn't at all prepared for it when a flat piece of scalding metal rested on the stitched wound across his side. A scream tore from his lips before he could stop it, his body arching in agony as the skin blistered and melted together. The pain still lingered, fresh as the first moment, when the metal was lifted away.

"There, see, that wasn't so bad, was it?" John asked tauntingly. "Only a few dozen more to go."

The process was long and slow, even more agonizing than the knives had been. No matter how hard Nathan tried, he couldn't stop all of the yelps and screams that broke through the gag in his mouth. Sometimes he was able to grit his teeth and ride it out, but more often than not he would thrash and shout. It was getting harder to ignore how much pain he was in, each new wave of it only mounting on top of what had already been caused. How much more of this could he take before he broke completely?

"Alright, nearly finished now," John said as he lifted the metal away from his leg. "I think that's all of them. Well, all except this one." He patted the bandage above Nathan's heart and the still tender skin twinged. "We'll leave this one be, wouldn't want to do something to mess up those pretty letters. That wouldn't be very artistic. However you do need to be washed up. All of these bloodstains are just too much. They're making it hard for me to see the blank spots in my canvas that still need to be worked on."

Nathan thrashed his head around, trying to tell what the man was doing. John patted his shoulder, the swollen bruised joint throbbing at the contact, and laughed. "You take a break, let those burns settle in, and then we'll get you cleaned up," he said. "I'll be back shortly. Just try to relax, yeah?"

A ripping sound filled the air close to his head, the sound he connected with duct tape, and then he felt it being pressed down onto what was already over his eyes. The noise reverberated in his head as the tape wrapped around and around, covering both his eyes and his ears with several thick layers until he was trapped in the dark silence. He felt John pat him twice on the chest, and then there was nothing. No sight, no sound beyond the pounding of his own heart, and no feeling except for the rolling waves of pain radiating out of every molecule of his body.

He took as deep a breath as his sore ribs allowed and forced himself to think of Audrey. She was bright and beautiful. She would save him from the dark.


	14. A Name and a Face

Audrey was pacing back and forth across the short hall in front of the administration offices. Duke leaned back in a hard plastic chair, watching her progress and trying not to show his impatience. Her pacing wasn't helping him much either.

"The clock isn't going to magically run faster," Duke informed her when she checked her watch for the fifth time in the last ten minutes.

Audrey shot him a withering look and went back to her pacing. Simply waiting around for the administrators to show up was driving her mad. Every minute that she was just standing there was another minute that Nathan was gone. He'd been gone for more than his twenty-four hours now and she didn't want to think about what that meant for his condition. Was he hurt? Was he just being held but not injured? Or was he dead?

No, he couldn't be dead. She felt sure that she'd know if he was dead. She didn't know how she would've known, but she was sure she would. He was connected to Haven, and Haven was connected to her. If someone as important to Haven as Nathan was gone beyond her help, she would know it.

Thirteen more circuits of the hallway and then the elevator pinged loudly. Audrey froze and spun to stare at the silver doors, and she felt Duke stand up and take up his place directly behind her. They waited expectantly as the elevator groaned, dinged again, and then the doors slid open. A middle-aged man in a business suit stepped out and then paused, looking at them in surprise.

"Detective Parker," he said and then his eyes flicked up over her shoulder, looking confused, "and Mr. Crocker." He shook his head slightly and then glanced back down at Audrey. "The secretary called me and told me that I was needed in the office on police business. What's going on?"

"We need your files on one of your employees," Audrey said. "An orderly named Michael Stauffer. And then we will also need access to your security tapes."

"Why? What's happened?" the man, who Audrey assumed was Mr. Egris, asked, gripping his briefcase anxiously.

"In your office, please," Audrey said. Mr. Egris nodded and then gestured for them to follow him. He unlocked the main door that led them into a hallway with a series of identical doors lining it. At the third door on the left, marked with a plaque that read "Personnel" he unlocked this one and shepherded them in ahead of him.

"What's going on, Detective?" Mr. Egris asked, settling himself in behind his desk.

"Michael Stauffer washed up at the marina early this morning," Audrey said. "We believe he was murdered."

Mr. Egris gasped and covered his mouth with a hand, looking ill. "Oh Lord, murdered?"

"We need your files on him, to see if we can find a motive," Audrey continued. "Also we need to know when the last time his ID badge was used to clock in. We think someone may have taken it to get access to your hospital for some reason."

"Oh what a nightmare," Mr. Egris muttered distractedly, his eyes wide as he hastily turned to his computer. "Yes, yes, of course. Give me just a moment here."

The printer in the corner of the room whirred into life and began spitting out sheets of paper. "Did you know Mr. Stauffer personally?" Audrey asked curiously.

"No, I'm afraid not," Mr. Egris said, gathering up the papers from the printer and handing them to her. "I recognize the name from my paperwork, but in a place this big you hardly get the chance to really know everyone personally. Especially people like the orderlies. They tend to be younger folks or seasonal workers, so they come and go so quickly. Looks like according to these records Michael had only been with us for two months. Just moved to Haven not long before that."

"So it's not likely he pissed someone off enough to kill him in that short a time," Duke chipped in. "I mean, I could do it but he doesn't seem like the sort of guy to have that talent."

Mr. Egris gave him a curious look and Audrey could tell that he was wondering why the hell Duke Crocker was there at all. To stave off the awkward questions, Audrey said, "Which means that this most likely really was just about getting into the hospital." She flipped through the file until she found his timecard and scanned down to the last entry. "Last clocked in the evening after Michael died, at six-thirty pm. And he never clocked out that night."

"So he snuck out in the middle of the evening?" Duke asked. Audrey glanced up to meet his eyes and she knew they were both thinking the same thing; six-thirty was the same time that she and Nathan had been there for the police blood drive.

"We need to see those security tapes, now," Audrey said, turning her attention to Mr. Egris. "We need to find out who was using his ID card to get into the hospital, because it's highly likely that whoever it was is the person who killed Michael." And kidnapped Nathan... she added in her mind.

"Yes, of course, right away," Mr. Egris said. "Please, follow me." The man bustled out of the office and led them around to another set of offices on the opposite end of the building, set away from everything else. He knocked on the thick metal door once and then shoved it open. Two men were sitting behind a desk lined with computer screens and they both looked up in surprise.

"What's up, Mr. E?" the stouter of the two men asked, cocking his head curiously.

"Detective Parker needs to check the security tapes," Mr. Egris said breathlessly, gesturing over his shoulder at her and Duke.

"Uh, sure, no problem," the stouter man said, confused but nodding. "Whatever you say."

"What we looking for, Detective?" the thinner man, a lanky pale beanpole of a man, asked.

"I need to see the time card clock in," Audrey said. "For Tuesday evening, around six-thirty pm."

"Right-o," the thin man said and swivelled around in his chair, punching buttons on the keyboards. A minute later the screen directly in front of him changed to show a cramped locker room lined with coat hooks and small cubby holes in the walls. An electronic card reader was hung on the wall beside the door and employees slid their cards through it on their way in and out. Audrey glanced at the time printed in the corner of the screen. 18:22 pm.

"Okay, we need to find the person who clocks in at six-thirty-three," Audrey said and the technician nodded, forwarding the video second-by-second. They watched several people walk in and out of the staff room, some going to the time clock and others to the cubbies. Finally the timer hit 18:33 and Audrey said, "Stop. There."

The screen showed the back of a man, frozen in the act of swiping his ID card through the time clock. He was wearing a set of dark magenta orderly scrubs. "Can you get a shot of his face?" Audrey asked.

"Lemme see," the lanky man said. He pressed a few buttons and the video changed frame by frame. The man on the screen slid his card and began to turn around in slow motion. The security technician paused it when the man was facing toward the camera.

"Can we get a better look?" Audrey asked.

The image zoomed only slightly when the technician tapped the keys. "That's as tight as we can go before it starts to pixilate."

Audrey nodded and leaned closer to examine their suspect. He looked passably close to the drowned man; he appeared to be only a few years older and had a very similar hair colour. The suspect had plain, average features. No distinguishing marks of any kind. He looked - normal.

"Print me a copy of that image," Audrey said. "Mr. Egris, circulate this picture through your staff, see if anyone remembers seeing him. Anything they can tell me would be helpful." Mr. Egris immediately nodded in compliance. "You guys," Audrey said, turning back to the security man, "is there any way you can track his progress? Find out where he went while he was here?"

"We'll do our best," the stout man promised and the thin one spun to the computers instantly.

"Great. This is my direct number," Audrey said, handing a card to them. "When you get that done, or if you see him do something really suspicious, you call me."

"Got it." The shorter man gave a sharp nod and then went to join his partner. After Audrey had given another card to Mr. Egris, she grabbed the print-out of their suspect and left the hospital with Duke.

"So what now?" Duke asked, speaking for the first time in a while.

"Now we find out who this man is," Audrey said determinedly. "Someone in town has to have seen him. We put a name to the face, and then find out what that name has to do with Nathan."

Duke looked grim but resolute. "And then what, we kill him?"

Audrey didn't have any good answer to that. She didn't want to say in cold-blood that she was going to kill someone, but she knew deep down that if it came down to it she wouldn't hesitate to eliminate the man who had taken her partner away from her. So instead she just gritted her teeth and finished, "And then we bring Nathan home."


	15. That Sinking Feeling

Despite all the other pains he'd been through over the last - however long he'd been there, the feeling of having the duct tape wrapped around his head being torn away still brought a yelp from Nathan. He was fairly certain that a good portion of his hair must have gone with the tape, and his eyes and ears were stinging. His mood didn't improve any when John's face loomed above his. "Morning Sunshine, ready to take a bath?"

Nathan bared his teeth angrily, and John just chuckled. "Alright then, we don't have to play fair if you don't want to," he said unconcernedly and then a strip of tape was pressed back over his eyes. Nathan twisted his head, trying to rub his face against his shoulder but he didn't get far.

A fizzling click in the air was the only indication that Nathan got before something touched his sternum. Electricity burned through his veins and made his body go rigid. His every muscle rebelled against him and even after the electricity had lifted he couldn't make his body respond or move. A tingling haze had spread through him like his every nerve was falling asleep.

While he lay there, unable to move, he heard the clanks of his restraints being unfastened. The leather straps were still wrapped firmly around his wrists and ankles, but they were no longer attached to the table. He tried to will his limbs to move. This was it, this was his chance. But no matter how much he tried to focus on it he couldn't make his body listen. His thoughts were thin and fuzzy, and his body felt numb and heavy.

John wrapped an arm around his waist and hauled him off of the table. Nathan's body slumped against him uselessly. He couldn't see where John was taking him as he half-carried, half-dragged him across the room. His body was deposited on the floor and John rolled him onto his stomach, linking his hands together behind his back. Then chains fastened his ankles to the floor, so tightly together that his feet overlapped each other. No way to stand up even if he could command his legs to try.

"Up-si-daisy," John said and pulled Nathan to his knees by the back of his neck. Nathan was force to kneel over the loop that kept his ankles in place, his hands firmly fastened behind his back. Even though the stiffness was gradually leaving his muscles, he still couldn't do much more than fidget and John could move him around easily.

"Now, I think it's time for a bit of cleaning, don't you?" John asked. A quick movement made the strap around his head loosen and the gag fell from his mouth. Before Nathan could even muster up a response through his aching jaw, two hands closed around the back of his neck again and shoved. Nathan's body bent double and his face was plunged into hot water. He gasped in shock and instantly inhaled a mouthful, choking as it burnt his lungs. Just when he thought he would surely drown he was yanked upward again. He sputtered and coughing, trying to get the water out of his lungs, and John laughed.

"You're not supposed to drink your bathwater," John teased. "Didn't your mother ever tell you that?" He made a small noise of comprehension. "Oh no, she wouldn't have, would she? After all, she died from drowning, didn't she?"

Nathan opened his mouth, an angry reply on the tip of his tongue, but then he was forced forward into the water again. He tried to hold his breath this time but after a while his chest began to ache and he had no choice but to take a breath. The water caused fire in his lungs, even after he was pulled upward again. The process was repeated over and over again; gasping in the water, gasping in the air. He never seemed to be able to catch his breath and his head was spinning so badly that it was only John's hands on his neck that were keeping him from crumbling to the ground.

"Feeling refreshed?" John asked when he finally stopped pressing his head down into the water. Nathan could barely hear him over his own coughing, trying desperately to get the last of the water from his lungs. John thumped him hard on the back, striking one of the swollen bruises on his ribs, which only made it harder for Nathan to breathe. "Why don't I let you just chill and relax while I finish cleaning up this mess you've made?" John said. "You really are quite the bleeder."

"Go to hell," Nathan growled out hoarsely.

John laughed. "I'll meet you there, my friend," he said unconcernedly. "Although I can assure you that you will be there long before I am. That's my orders. Teach you the meaning of suffering and then send you where you can't cause any more trouble."

"Who hired you?" Nathan asked. "Who would be sick enough to ally themselves with someone like you?"

"Oh you'd be surprised how many people are on my client list," John responded. He separated the cuffs on his ankles from the loop in the floor and then seized Nathan around the shoulders, dragging him across the floor. Nathan bit back groans as tender skin was scraped across the cold concrete and John's pulling made his recently dislocated and then relocated shoulder shriek in pain. Nathan tried to fight, struggling to free himself from John's grip, but his muscles were so sore and weak and his limbs were bound so tightly together that even if he'd gotten free he wouldn't have made it anywhere. Especially not blind.

John once again grabbed him around the waist and heaved, this time lifting him up into something. As Nathan's body slid to the bottom he let out a startled noise, because there was a layer of cold, hard objects beneath his back. John attached the cuffs on his legs to something at the end of the tub, and then jerked his arms around to lock them in place along the sides, keeping his body in a stiff, awkward position.

"Yes, I have a very long list of clients, Nathan, all of them very powerful people," John continued as if there had been no interruption. "My skills are quite the speciality after all, and people are willing to pay a great deal to teach their enemies a lesson. But here in Haven, this is always one of my favourites. There's nothing quite like experimenting with a Cursed One." John quite suddenly ripped the tape from Nathan's eyes again and it left his skin stinging and his eyes watering. "I've been to town a couple times, but it's only just within the last few years that it's started to pick back up again. You Cursed Ones are so much more of a challenge than normal people. Working around these curses and powers really tests me. I love it."

Nathan looked around as best as he could through his stinging eyes. He was lying in what looked like a wide bathtub, his limbs fastened spread eagle to the edges of the cool metal. What he could see of his body was covered in colourful bruises and bright red stains. He couldn't move his head far enough to see what was under him, but the cold that was biting at his back could only be ice. John's face filled his vision, blocking some of his view of the stark ceiling.

"Now, let's get you cleaned up," he said with a grin, and then he lifted a white bucket. When he tipped it, cubed ice rained down on Nathan's body, hitting him like pellets and stinging as the cold struck his flesh. Bucket after bucket came until Nathan's entire body was covered beneath a thick layer of ice, everything but his arms from the elbows and his feet and head. Then John added several more buckets of water, which felt even colder than the ice as it washed over and around Nathan's body. It felt like he was sinking in a frozen lake, like he'd fallen through the ice in the middle of winter. When he looked down at the water just centimetres beneath his chin, it was red.

"Much better," John said with a satisfied nod. He walked away, and when he came back it was with more of the IV stands, one with a bag of red, one with a bag of clear. He attached an IV to either arm and bandaged them in place. "Wonderful. Now you just stay here and relax, I'm going to go clean up your mess and then we can chat."

"Go t-to hell," Nathan repeated through chattering teeth. His entire body was already trembling with the cold as it swept around him, leeching all of the warmth from his skin.

John chuckled. "You small town folk are so eloquent," he said and then walked away again. The sounds of Mozart filled the room as well as splashing and scrubbing.

Nathan tried to focus but the cold was making it hard to think. He knew what happened to a human body if it got too cold. Living in a town with winters as bad as Maine had, he'd seen more than his fair share of hypothermia, frostbite, and frozen corpses. Boaters who fell into the ocean, hikers who got lost in the snow. He could already feel the ache settling in, his muscles seizing up and his joints stiffening. His skin was so cold it felt like it was burning. Even with that, he knew that he still had a while to go before it started causing permanent damage.

"There, that's done." John had come back and he sat down on a low stool beside the basin. His white shirt was stained with pale red patches, especially around his rolled up sleeves, and there was a streak of blood on his cheek that he was rubbing at with a handkerchief. "How are you feeling?"

"F-f-fant-tastic," Nathan stuttered out with as contemptuous a glare as he could manage.

John smirked. "Good to hear," he said. "You know, you really are a strong man. It's no wonder Audrey was drawn to you. You were her protector, at least until the end there."

"Don't t-talk ab-bout Audrey," Nathan snapped angrily. The mental image of her blood-streaked body sprawled across the bed flashed in his mind and he felt like he might have vomited if there was anything in his stomach.

"Right, sorry, touchy subject," John said and held his hands up in surrender. "Well what can we talk about then? Because it seems to me like you are a very sensitive man, Nathan. What would you like to talk about?"

"How I'm g-g-gonna kill you," Nathan said, fighting to keep his attention under control. He wouldn't let his guard down in front of this man again.

John chuckled. "It's quite a waste of time to talk about foolish fantasies, don't you agree?" he said. "We both know you're not going to kill me. I have the upper hand here, in every way. And if I weren't having so much fun working with you, I'd kill you right now just to prove my point. People have tried to kill me. Oh you folks always threaten death and revenge. But I'm still here, aren't I? Because I can't be beaten. You can't kill someone who doesn't exist."

Nathan's brow furrowed at this despite his attempt to not react. What sort of gibberish was this man spouting now?

"That's how I chose my name, you know," John continued. "John Doe. I'm the man that no one knows, the man that no one can find. The man who doesn't really exist. I live beneath the radar, separate from the rest of the world, on a level all my own. I work outside of the rules of society and the expectations of normalcy. To the rest of you, I'm just a phantom."

"You're ins-s-sane," Nathan informed him. It was starting to get harder to hold his eyes open, the cold making him feel heavy and tired. The cold had soaked straight through to his bones and it felt like needles of pain were shooting up through every bone, spreading and expanding until they might shatter to pieces.

"You can really feel it now, can't you?" John said. A grin had spread across his face and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the rim of the basin. "The cold, the way it seeps right through into your soul and freezes you from the inside. The fatigue, the aches. Everything inside of you is slowing down, preparing to shut down. Do you think this is how your mother felt before she died? Heavy and tired and aching? Like she would just sink straight to the bottom of that icy river?"

"D-d-don't," Nathan warned but the venom was butchered by how badly he was shaking.

"And you were there, weren't you?" John continued, ignoring him. "You stood there and watched her, trapped beneath that layer of ice. Watched your own mother as she drowned in a frozen river, begging for help. Did you watch the colour leave her skin, the last of the bubbles fade from her mouth, the blue creep into her flesh?"

"S-stop!" Nathan shouted, his voice cracking. He couldn't force his eyes open and he watched the memory play out on the backs of his eyelids. His mother's smiling face as they slid across the old river up the hill, her cheeks pink from the snow and her favourite purple hat pulled down low on her forehead. The look of surprise and the loud crack as the ice gave way and his mother disappeared with a splash. He could still see her scared face as she was dragged beneath the ice, the river current pulling her along under his feet; saw her clawing for some purchase to keep herself from disappearing further. Nathan had followed her, pounding at the ice and trying to break it so he could get to her, screaming for her.

He lost sight of her when the river widened and deepened just before joining the reservoir, but he never forgot the last glimpse he'd seen of her face. The pink had faded to a ghostly white, her eyes wide but not moving, her hands trailing limply along the underside of the ice, her opened lips pale blue.

"Cursed One indeed," John said and clicked his tongue. "To lose so many people close to you. Your mother. And then your fathers, both of them the same day. Your lover and partner. You really don't have anyone left, do you? Such is the life of the lonely and cursed Nathan Wuornos."

"F-fuck y-y-you," Nathan spat, opening his eyes just enough to send a lazy glare up at John.

John only laughed and patted his arm where it lay on the side of the tub. "No, we're not going to play with that sort of torture, remember?" he said teasingly. "Unless you ask really nice of course." He stood up and reached a hand into the water, touching Nathan's chilled skin. "Alright, I think bath time's about over for you. Let's get you up."

John made quick work of the restraints and IVs, and then he reached in and heaved Nathan out of the water. The moment the air hit his freezing skin a whole new wave of pain lanced through him, needle-like stings pricking at his entire body. John dragged him back over to the prepared chains in the middle of the room. Nathan wanted nothing more than to curl in on himself and find some semblance of warmth, but John attached his ankles to the ring in the floor and then hauled him upright to connect his wrists to the bar. Nathan's joints groaned in protest as his body weight hung on his wrists, his body shaking too badly for him to hold himself up.

As Nathan hung there, John rearranged the spotlights in a circle around him. The strong bulbs were bright and cast off waves of heat as they shone against his chilled skin. Small space heaters were staggered between the lamps, and the air grew hot and thick as he tried to breathe it in

"I'll give you some time to thaw out, and then we'll pick up where we left off, yeah?" John said. He grabbed the discarded gag and wedged it into Nathan's mouth again. "Enjoy."

He left through a door Nathan couldn't see. Nathan hung in the shackles, his body still trembling uncontrollably and his mind swimming with memories he'd rather leave forgotten.


	16. Someone's Always Watching

Audrey's already short fuse was getting infinitely shorter as the morning wore on. The excitement over finding the man who might have taken Nathan was starting to ebb away. They hadn't been able to connect a name to the face yet, and even though they'd been asking all over town no one seemed to recognize him.

"This is getting ridiculous," Audrey growled as they climbed back into the Bronco after questioning the occupants of Rosemary's bakery. "It's a small town; someone has to have seen him."

"Unless he was invisible," Duke said. She couldn't tell if he was being serious or not, so she didn't respond.

"Let's go back to the station, see if they've found anything," Audrey said. She was grasping at straws and she knew it, but she had to try. "Maybe we can run a search through the archives and see if we can find something familiar."

"I hate going to the station," Duke grumbled.

Audrey forced a weak smile. "At least this time you're not in cuffs," she pointed out. "That's a first."

The station was still in full steam when they walked in. The majority of the officers were either out patrolling town and looking for anything suspicious or working the road blocks around the edges of town just in case their mystery man tried to make an escape. The few that were still in the office were on the phones, exchanging papers and yelling information to each other across the room. Some of them looked up hopefully when Audrey walked in, but once they saw her flat expression they went back to their work.

Duke followed Audrey into the chief's office, standing around while she sat down at her desk and turned on her computer. "Don't you need to work or something?" she asked curiously.

Duke shrugged. "Nah, they can run the place just fine without me," he said. "I'm really only there to improve the aesthetics and to make sure you cops don't harass too many of my customers. If they need me, they'll call." He sat down on the sofa and when Audrey gave him a questioning look he sighed. "Okay so maybe I wanna find Nathan too. I'm finally on the good side of a chief; I don't want to give up that chance while I've got it."

Audrey smirked a little but she didn't push the topic any further. Her little office computer had finally whirred into life and she pulled up the Haven Herald's website. Typing 'kidnapping' into the search box, she began scanning through the articles, looking for anything that might match. Across from her Duke folded his legs up onto the couch and began meditating.

A thunderous crash shook the windows and made Audrey jump. She pivoted around to look out the window and saw that the early morning's cloud cover had morphed into thick black layers, turning the world outside prematurely dark. As she watched, a bolt of lightning lanced through the clouds, followed almost immediately by another blast of thunder.

"Gotta love autumn on the coast," Duke said, his eyes still closed. "These storms just roll in out of nowhere."

"Lovely," Audrey said dryly. Rain began to lash at the glass as she turned back to her computer.

"Well the sea, she be a dangerous lass," Duke said sagely without budging from his meditative position.

"Quit talking like a pirate," Audrey snapped as she closed yet another useless article. Duke grinned but didn't answer. Audrey kept poring over the archives, jumping every time thunder split the air. Her brain felt frayed and she could tell she was getting close to her stress limit. She was just about to tell Duke to make himself useful and go get her a coffee when a particularly loud crash vibrated the walls and they were suddenly plunged into darkness.

"Oh that's great!" Audrey said angrily, staring at the blank screen of her computer. "Just wonderful."

Duke had finally opened his eyes again and he looked around. "Don't you guys have some kind of back-up generator?" he asked.

"Yeah, for the phones and radios," Audrey said. "The main generator takes like fifteen minutes to come back on, and after that it'll take another ten for this ancient piece of junk computer to turn on again." She leaned back in her chair and ran a hand through her hair in frustration. Just when she thought she'd finally been making some progress to finding Nathan, she'd run into yet another brick wall. Had this been what it was like for Nathan when she'd been kidnapped on Duke's boat? Just sitting and waiting for some news? Any news?

A faint flash of colour made Audrey sit up, staring at the wall in confusion. She was just about to pass it off as her imagination when she saw it again; a little blink of red from above one of the shelves, so dim she never could've seen it except in this complete darkness. She grabbed her desk chair and hauled it over to the wall.

"What are you doing?" Duke asked, watching her curiously. Audrey ignored him as she stood on the chair and began shifting aside photo frames and shadow boxes. There it was; a square piece of black plastic, with a glossy lens on the front and a red power light blinking on the side.

"It's a camera," Audrey said in awe. She startled when the overhead lights suddenly flared back into life, the fluorescent dazzling after the darkness. "A video camera," she continued. "Someone's been watching us."

"Okay, that's creepy," Duke said. Audrey's face suddenly paled and he said, "What?" In response she turned the camera around and showed him the image etched into the back: a circular maze, with a person standing at each of the four compass points. Duke's expression turned grim again. "Shit."

Audrey walked out into the bullpen and when she found the man she was looking for she yelled, "Seddal."

Bob Seddal looked up and then hurried over. "What is it, Parker?" he asked.

"You're good with tech, right?" Audrey asked, distantly remembering a conversation she'd had with Nathan about it. Apparently Seddal was the guy everyone turned to when their computers acted up.

"I'm not bad at it," he agreed. "Marty's better with most of it."

"Then I need you to grab him and work on something for me. I found this camera. It's still on so I think it's still transmitting. I need you to find out where it's sending the video to."

Seddal accepted the little camera from her and nodded."We'll get right on it," he said and tore off again.

"You think it's the same guy?" Duke asked when she came back into the office.

"If it's not then we've got even more problems than we thought," Audrey responded. "Either way, we need to know who went to so much trouble to spy on us. Anyone who's keeping tabs on the chief's office can't be up to much good."

"It had the mark," Duke said. The same look had come over his face that always did when that four-point maze appeared, the look of ill-repressed fear. "Like the tattoo on the guy who's suppose to kill me. You think it's the guy who took Nathan?"

"It's probably connected," Audrey agreed. "This group is linked to this town, and it seems every time there's real trouble here then this mark shows up somewhere." She looked tense and thoughtful, but before she could say more her phone rang. She whipped it out and answered it with a curt, "Parker."

"Hey Detective Parker, it's TJ McGuire from the hospital security." Audrey recognized the voice as the shorter man. "You asked me and Joey to see if we could track that guy and we managed to follow most of where he went. He went in and out of lots of rooms like a normal orderly, but there's one place he went that orderlies usually don't: the blood lab. Thought that was kinda weird so I thought we should let you know."

"What did he do in there?" Audrey asked, feeling a familiar cold dread forming in the pit of her stomach.

"Couldn't see much, there's no cameras inside. Too cold, ya know? He pushed a cleaning cart in, was in there for a minute or two, and then came back out. He went straight from there to a basement hall and that's where we lost him. Think he mighta slipped out through one of the back entrances down there."

"Thanks," Audrey said and snapped the phone shut. She looked up at where the camera had been, and then touched the barely healed scar that ran down her forearm. The dread turned into near terror and nausea.

"What'd you find?" Duke asked eagerly. "Did you get something on him?"

"Found out why he wanted into the hospital," Audrey said. "He definitely went in for just one thing. Snuck into the blood bank and then left."

"Blood bank?" Duke asked. He wrinkled his nose up in disgust. "So what, he's a vampire?"

Audrey rubbed the jagged mark on her arm again. "Nathan can feel my blood. We found out right here in this very office, just a little while ago. I cut myself and he could feel my blood when it was on him. I thought this guy wanted into the hospital to get close to Nathan, but it wasn't. He wanted my blood. If this guy was watching that video, he'd have heard me and Nathan talking about it. He'd know that with my blood he can make Nathan feel again."

Duke still looked dumbfounded. "I don't get where you're going with this."

"You can't hurt Nathan, he doesn't feel anything," Audrey explained, trying to control her panic. "But if you use my blood, put it on a wound or a knife or something, then Nathan would feel it. They could actually hurt him."

The comprehension that lit in Duke's face was quickly followed by horror. "You think that's what this is? Someone wanting to make him hurt?"

Audrey's eyes were wide and it took everything that she had not to completely panic at her frightening new discovery. Could that be what this was? Was someone out there hurting Nathan? Using her – her blood – to make him suffer? How could he hold up underneath the pain? It had been so long since he'd felt pain, it must feel like agony tenfold for him. "We've got to find him. Fast."

"Audrey!"

Seddal suddenly jogged into the office, his face flushed with excitement. Marty Kapps skidded in after him, actually stumbling into him from behind in their hurry. "Audrey, we got it," Seddal panted, foisting a piece of crumbled lined paper in her direction. "Coordinates. We got 'em."

"Where?" Audrey asked, snatching the paper out of his hands and looking down at the numbers that had been hastily scrawled on it.

"Just outside the edge of town," Seddal said. "West of Rock Ridge, looks like right in there where all the roads disappear."

"I know where he's talking about," Duke said suddenly. "Nathan and I used to hike up there as kids. C'mon." He seized her arm and they barrelled out of the police station, jumping into the Bronco. The doors were hardly shut before the engine roared into life and Audrey slammed down on the accelerator so hard the gears whined in protest. The sirens wailed overhead as Audrey pelted full speed in the direction Duke had told her, and inside her chest her heart was hammering.

We're coming, Nathan, just hold on. I'm coming.


	17. Going Under

The whip crack sounded through the air, mingling with Nathan's shout. He felt his skin swell, sting, tear beneath the lash of leather across his back. It had been going on like this for so long now, ever since John had come back. His skin had barely warmed when he'd come back and taken the lamps away, although his insides still felt frozen and stiff. The first strike of the leather strip over his skin had stung much more than he thought it should. Everything hurt so much more than it should. He hurt too much.

"That's such a satisfying sound, isn't it?" John asked, flicking the whip through the air dramatically. The tip of it bit against the side of Nathan's hip, bringing a welt up across the tender skin. "I always thought that the movies must have digitally enhanced that sound or something, but it really does just sound that great. That crack." He swung it again and another welt blossomed on Nathan's chest as his body jerked weakly from the pain. "It gives me chills."

Nathan closed his eyes and tried to will himself out of this place. He wanted to believe he was anywhere else. It was just becoming too much. He couldn't take much more of this.

The crack split the air and the flesh of his back again, sending a fresh ribbon of blood rolling down his back alongside the others. He could feel the dizziness setting in again, the familiar feeling he'd come to associate with unconsciousness. Blood loss was coming on. It wouldn't be long before he slipped out again.

"Alright, that's enough of that," John said after another whip crack. Nathan listened to the sounds of his footsteps as John walked around in front of him, but he couldn't make his eyes open. He didn't want to see anymore anyway. There was nothing in front of him but the dark concrete cell that had been his prison for this last eternity, the tools that had been used to inflict countless hours of pain upon him, and the cruel face of the man who had made every second happen with carefully calculated pleasure.

No, he didn't want to see anymore.

Pain exploded in his side and Nathan felt his muscles react instinctively to the injury, trying to pull away from it. He wished it wouldn't. All that did was make everything hurt worse. Trying to avoid the pain just brought the rest of it back to life, throbbing through his body all over again. The warm trails of his blood seemed to be everywhere; rolling all the way from his shredded wrists to where they dripped from his toes onto the concrete floor.

"Don't go slipping away on me, Nathan." John slapped him across the face, jerking him out of the dull fuzziness that had become his temporary retreat. "No, you're not cutting out yet. We're not finished here. There's still so much more fun to be had."

There was that smell again, and a second later the burning metal was pressed against his chest on the side opposite the scarred name. He screamed, screamed with everything he was worth. There was no point in holding them back anymore. He didn't have the strength to try. Maybe if he screamed enough the lack of oxygen would finally let him escape into his head again.

The fire moved to the hole that had just been stabbed into his stomach and the stench of melting flesh and boiling blood overpowered his senses. He wanted to vomit, but it had been so long since he'd eaten or drank that he couldn't have if he tried. As the burn pushed further in he saw sparks flashing behind his eyelids and the blurriness forming at the back of his mind began to spread, creeping through his brain and down through his spine.

This was it. Please, dear God, let this be it. Let this be the end.

A dull beeping broke the moment and John suddenly lifted the metal away. He pressed a little button and then cursed under his breath. Nathan heard the clatter of the metal being set down, and then steps heading away from him.

Nathan breathed deeply around the gag in his mouth, almost mournful that John had gone. He'd been so close, so close to getting away from this once and for all. Now that the most intense of the pains had gone the fogginess retreated into the back of his skull again, leaving him weak and disoriented but most certainly still alive and conscious.

John's footsteps were heavy and hard when he came back, and there was something quicker in his breathing. "Alright, Nate, looks like our fun's been cut short," he said. "I've got other places to be and new people to meet. But don't worry; I've saved my best treat for last."

Nathan collapsed against John when the restraints were released. John hung his body over his shoulder and then they were moving. Nathan's eyes only opened enough for him to see the concrete floor beneath John's glossy black shoes, and the world seemed to be spinning around him. Or maybe that was just his head.

John's breathing huffed as they went up a set of stairs that were behind the door Nathan had never seen before but heard John go through. Nathan's head knocked against something as they came up through what must have been a trap door above the stairs, but John didn't seem to care. It wasn't enough to knock him out, so Nathan didn't care either.

Beyond the stairs was dirt floor, and then through another doorway dirt changed into grass. For the first time in so long Nathan felt fresh air. It was cool on his skin, rain speckling his back. Wind tore across his body, making the wounds on his skin sting afresh, and below him he saw his arms swinging to the side from the wind pressure. He moaned when John abruptly shifted, letting Nathan's body slide down over his shoulder to the ground. But no, it wasn't the ground. It was soft and smooth, like fabric.

Confused, Nathan managed to force his eyes open again. Far above him were the indistinct masses of thunderclouds. Raindrops splattered on his skin, cold and sharp. John was standing above him, and to his left he could see something white extending upward. It was made of fabric too, something glossy and pure like what he was laying on.

"This'll be where we say good-bye, Nathan," John informed him, kneeling down so his face was close enough for Nathan's weak eyes to make out more distinctly. "But before I do, I've got a gift for you." He pulled two little vials from the pockets of his pants and opened them up, and then he dumped the liquid inside of them over Nathan's body. Immediately the overwhelming and familiar smell made Nathan's head spin. "Lilies and lilac," John said smugly. "That's what she always smelled like, isn't it? I thought you'd like to feel like she's here with you in the end. Sweet, aren't I? I'd actually put her in here too but I had to dispose of her body earlier so no one caught onto my trail."

Nathan fought against the tears that threatened his eyes as he breathed in the scented oils. Lilies and lilacs. Those were the flowers that Audrey had brought him after their very first case together. It wasn't coincidence; those were her favourite flowers. She always smelled like them. Lily body lotion and lilac shampoo. The last time he had smelt them so clearly, her body had been creating warm friction on his and her hair had been tickling his face as she moved above him, giving him a world full of magic and pleasure just by being there. A beauty that he would never see or hear or feel again, but that he would die smelling.

"Yes, I thought you might appreciate that," John said. "And one last thing." There was a sharp pain in Nathan's thigh, like the abrupt stab of a needle. "An adrenaline shot. Extra-strength, just for you. Otherwise you won't be awake near long enough to enjoy this last little experiment. Well, it was an honour working with you, Nathan Wuornos. Good-bye." And with one last smirk, John stood up. His hand clasped the white something above Nathan's side and he lowered it. It was only as the last strip of light was disappearing between the ridge against Nathan's shoulder and the thing John held that he finally realized where he was.

A coffin.

The darkness settled around him and his heart accelerated. He could feel the adrenaline already coursing through him, chasing away the murky fatigue that had been plaguing his body for so long. Above him was a muffled thump-thump-thump of something landing on the top of the coffin. Dirt? He was being buried alive.

Terror like nothing he'd known exploded inside of him and Nathan felt like pure energy had been poured into his veins. He lifted his hands in the limited space and began hammering against the top of the coffin. He placed his palms flat on the silky fabric and shoved but the lid didn't lift. There was already too much weight bearing down on him, pressure keeping the lid from raising. Even when he pulled his knees up and pushed with them as well, it wouldn't shift. He was trapped. Locked up alone in the dark.

A scream burst out of him and he started pummelling every surface he could reach, praying for something, anything, to give out and offer him some escape. He thrashed and punched and kicked but nothing moved.

The darkness pressed in on him, suffocating him. It was hard to breath, and he reached up to pull the gag from his mouth so he could breathe better. "Help me!" he shrieked but he knew no one would hear him. The heavy blackness was wrapped around him completely, so much that he couldn't even see his own body. He held his hand against his own nose but couldn't even make out the sight of his fingers. There was nothing at all to break the shadows.

His heart was pounding so fiercely in his chest that it was painful. It throbbed against his bruised ribs, beneath the bandaged skin that bore her name. He could hear it pulsing through his ears, beating out a frantic rhythm.

Thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump.

You're trapped, you're trapped, you're trapped.

He threw himself against the sides of the coffin but nothing shifted. Pain radiated through his body in new waves with each blow, emphasized by the adrenaline that was flooding through him. It heightened his senses. He could taste the earth and the oil chemicals and the sour taste in his mouth. He could hear every single double-beat of his heart and rub of his skin against the silken fabric and the desperation of his voice as he continued screaming, pleading for help. He could smell his own body and sweat and blood and the powdery scent of the pillow beneath his head and the staggering scent of lilies and lilac that came at him from every direction. He could feel pain and thrumming energy and the way the temperature was rising inside of the little space until the air felt thick in his lungs.

And as his eyes scanned hopefully for something it only reminded him more and more how there was nothing. Nothing around him but dark. Black. Trapped.

His voice was failing him. It cracked, grated against the inside of his throat, and faded into a worthless squeak. He gasped for more air, needing to summon up enough to make himself heard, but no matter how long he inhaled he still didn't feel like his lungs were full. Deep in the rational part of his mind he knew what that meant. The air was thinning. He was going to run out of oxygen soon, and then he would suffocate inside this crushing darkness.

He couldn't stop the tears now. After everything that he had been through, he had never expected the end to be like this. That he would be snuffed out like a candle beneath a bottle, deprived of air until he flickered out. He didn't want to die like this. Caught in a cage like an animal. He couldn't take it.

His head felt fuzzy again. A strong, tugging heaviness that was trying to pull him under, like when he worked too many hours without sleep. The sort of grogginess that took you over until it was completely satisfied. He knew that this time when he gave into it – there was no longer an 'if', it was his inescapable fate – then he wouldn't be waking up again, fully rested and ready for the day. When he went to sleep it would be the end. He'd be over.

Drawing breath had become so difficult. His eyes were heavy again, closing even though it made no difference to his surroundings. There was nothing but darkness everywhere. Even inside of him now, just darkness. He stopped fighting, just concentrating on continuing to breathe.

Each inhale brought the scent of Audrey over him again. Lily body lotion and lavender shampoo. If he thought about it, he could pretend that she was there with him. That the claustrophobic pressure wrapping around him was really her body, holding him so close they were almost one. That the stifling heat was their mingled breaths and the heady sweat of their bodies working together, the fire that he felt every time her touches brought his skin to life. He breathed her in and breathed out the pain.

"Audrey," he gasped weakly, and he could almost feel the feather light touch of her fingertips across his temples. But no, that was his tears, warm and wet as they coursed down into the oil-soaked pillow beneath him.

He breathed her in one last time, and as he breathed out he felt the world slip away.

Thu-thump...

thu.. thump...

thu...

thump...

thu...

...


	18. Into the Earth

The rain lashed against the windscreen, so loudly that even if Audrey and Duke had tried to talk to each other they wouldn't have heard it. It didn't matter though because neither was inclined towards conversation anyway. Audrey's knuckles were white on the steering wheel as she pushed the truck along much faster than it should be going in such dangerous weather. She couldn't stop though. They were so close.

"The turns coming up ahead," Duke shouted over the squeaking of the windscreen blades, pointing forward and to the right. "That's the trail entrance."

Audrey slowed the Bronco down just enough to make the turn without rolling and then accelerated again. They had turned onto a wide dirt road that was winding up the hills, thick trees growing up and over the roadway. It sheltered them from the majority of the rain but the branches cast them in heavier shadows that made it difficult to see the treacherous road. Audrey held her breath but kept them on their path determinedly. She wouldn't be stopped, not now when she was so close.

And they were getting close. Audrey could feel it in her chest, something stirring the way it always did when she was about to solve the mystery. She had never really understood it, but she passed it off as something to do with her connection to the town. Whoever or whatever she really was, she was attached to this town and it made her more receptive to whatever was happening within it. Nathan was close. She could feel it.

The road began to narrow and they both bounced inside of the truck as ruts tore through the surface of the originally smooth path. Tree roots broke through the damp dirt and made them jostle from side to side as they were thrown around in the cab of the truck. They'd only gone another half mile before the trees had grown so close together across the road that they couldn't go any further.

A small curved grove stuck out to the side of the path, clearly meant to serve as a parking spot for hikers. There was a trash bin, a posted billboard for the ranger's fliers, and an old wooden bench. A standard black SUV, with tinted windows and no license plates, was parked in the open area.

Audrey stopped the Bronco in the middle of the roadway and threw it into park. Duke had already leapt out and by the time she'd ran around the truck to join him he was checking their coordinates on the GPS. "This way," he said and took off at a jog toward one of the narrow trails behind the black SUV.

The track was a simple dirt pathway that wound between the trees, relatively smooth except for that occasional rock or root twisting up through the ground. It was just narrow enough that they had to move single-file, Audrey darting behind Duke as he ducked beneath low-hanging branches and steered them toward the coordinates they'd programmed.

When the GPS chirped loudly Audrey felt like her heart had leapt into her throat. They were there.

The path curved and suddenly opened up into a clearing that was set high on the ridge. In the middle of the opening was a small stone building. The grass was soaked and slick, and as a bolt of lightning coursed through the clouds high above it made the ground gleam. There was a dark hillock of mud a few yards away from the building. A door in the front of the cabin was open and a light came from beyond it.

Duke stopped and glanced back at Audrey. She pulled out her sidearm and stepped in front of him, jogging toward the building. "Really wish I had one of those," Duke grumbled, keeping close behind her. As much as the idea of Duke with a gun scared her, she kind of agreed that it wouldn't be all that bad an idea if he had one too. She wondered how long it would take for the other officers to catch up with them.

Audrey paused outside the door and waited, listening for any sound from inside. She couldn't hear anyone talking, and any other noises were drowned out by the sound of the storm. Taking a steadying breath, she drew back the safety on her gun and then peered around the doorframe.

The building was nothing more than a simple square room, with stone walls and a dirt floor. In one corner she could see an air mattress spread out on the floor, with disorganized blankets strewn across the top of it. A small square suitcase rested next to it, the sleeve of a shirt hanging out through the opening. In the other corner was a camp stove and a few dishes and empty food cans. She couldn't see anyone inside, so she stepped through the door to get a better look at the other half of the room.

A long desk ran along the length of the entire wall, and a series of computer screens rested on it. A live video feed was streaming through each of them, showing a different scene, on all of the screens but two. One of them was black, the other was covered in static. Audrey drew closer to examine the videos. One showed the exterior of this building, pointing out toward the pathway that they'd come up on, the lens speckled with water droplets. Another showed a view of Nathan's house and it looked like it was coming from somewhere across the street to watch his door. The front of the police station, where she could see an officer walk out of the door and run for his car.

Then there was another room that she'd never seen before. It was a simple square room, gray and concrete like some sort of basement, and it was full of strange things that made Audrey's blood curl; a wide table streaked with something dark, a low bathtub full of discoloured liquid, a set of chains hanging from the ceiling. It didn't take much imagination to figure out what that place was: a torture chamber. What frightened her was that she could only see one figure inside, and it wasn't Nathan.

"Is that-?" Duke trailed off, looking horrified at the screen.

The man who was moving around on the screen looked to be in a hurry. He was tossing a few items into a duffel bag and then he turned and walked beneath the camera. A second later Audrey heard footsteps coming toward them and she exchanged panicked looks with Duke. She gestured toward the door and Duke nodded and bolted outside, but she could still see his profile against the doorframe. Audrey tightened her grip on her gun and pivoted herself toward the sound. She couldn't see any doors coming into the room but there was no doubt the pounding steps were coming closer.

A square patch of the floor suddenly swung upward and a light-coloured head appeared, followed shortly by a body. The man was wearing a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the material stained with red and brown. He had gotten entirely out of the trapdoor before he noticed her and he turned quickly, whipping a gun from the waist of his slacks. Audrey reacted instinctively; her finger tightened around the trigger and the shot rang through the room.

The man yelped and dropped to the ground as the bullet tore through his leg. Audrey pounced, kicking the gun from his hand and then standing over him, her sidearm trained on his chest. Duke came back into the room and picked up the discarded gun, holding it at the ready.

"Where's Nathan?" she growled dangerously.

"I seriously underestimated you, Lucy Ripley," the man said with a laugh. "Or no, it's Audrey Parker now, isn't it? You should feel honoured. No one has ever got the jump on me the way you have."

"Where's Nathan?" Audrey repeated. She refused to let this man get under her skin. That was blood staining his clothes, blood that belonged to her partner. "Tell me where he's at."

"Nathan's already six-feet-under, Detective," the man said calmly.

"Where is my partner?" Audrey repeated again. He wasn't dead. He couldn't be. She would know. When the man gave her an amused look she put her foot on the bullet hole in his leg and pressed down. The man gritted his teeth to muffle his gasp, his eyes rolling back in his head as the pain washed over him. "Where is Nathan?"

"The screen," the man groaned, pointing toward the line of computers. "The black screen. Turn it on." Audrey and Duke exchanged sceptical looks. "The camera's in with him, you'll see. I buried it with him. I wanted to watch his last minutes, but you showed up and cut my plans short."

Audrey hesitated a second longer, but then she nodded to Duke. He walked over to the screen and pressed the power button. The screen flickered and then a grainy green-tinged image flared into life. It took Audrey a minute to make out what she was seeing because it was moving so much, but once she did her heart stopped.

He was right; it was Nathan. The camera was only inches from his face and he was twisting his head around. Although there was no audio, she could see by the way his mouth was moving that he was screaming. His eyes were wide and terrified, darting frantically and full of tears. She could tell by the colour of the footage that it was a night-vision camera. Wherever Nathan was, he was trapped in the dark.

The one thing in the world that he was most frightened of.

Audrey turned her attention back to the man beneath her, her features stretching into a furious scowl. "Where is he?" she said. "He's still alive. What did you do with him?"

"Oh he won't be alive for long," the man assured her. "He's already been in there for a while now, the oxygen will run out any time now. Especially with him being so hysterical like that. He's burning through it extra fast."

Audrey pulled the trigger again, putting another bullet in the man's side. She made sure to miss the important organs, but she made her point. The man screamed shortly. "Where is he?" Audrey bellowed, leaning in to level the gun with the man's forehead.

"You'll never get to him in time," the man said. He nodded toward the screen and Audrey chanced a half-glance at it. Nathan's eyes were half open and his mouth was still moving, but he'd stopped shifting around as much. "Like I said, he's already six-feet-under."

An image flashed in Audrey's mind; a little mound of dark earth protruding from the grass outside. Cold, hard horror exploded inside of her. Putting her gun away, she turned around and raced from the building. It felt like each step took an eternity as she tore across the slick grass towards that ridge of dirt. She slid to a stop in the mud and her eyes fell on a shovel that lay perfectly next to the mound, just begging her to try.

"Hold on, Nathan," she said and she seized the shovel. Plunging it into the dirt, she heaved it over her shoulder. Her heart was hammering so hard that it made it difficult to breathe, and she was panting painfully as she moved shovel after shovel of dirt. After three shovelfuls Duke appeared beside her.

"Is he-?" he asked, pointing toward the ground and looking scared.

"Help me!" Audrey shouted in reply, never breaking her pace. Duke nodded and dropped to his knees, lifting dirt out with his bare hands. The dirt was loose, freshly turned, but the rain had turned it to mud and the sludge was difficult to move. Audrey was soaked through, not just with the rain but with her own sweat. No matter how her shoulders and back ached, no matter how her lungs burned or her body shook with cold, she couldn't stop. Nathan was down there. She had to get to him.

She could tell from the video that he was in a small space. Which meant that he also had a small amount of oxygen. With his accelerated breathing rate, that little air wouldn't last him very long. How long had he been down there before she'd gotten here? Was he already reaching his limit when she arrived? Was he even now, right beneath her feet, gasped for oxygen that didn't exist? Suffocating to death, alone in the dark? Audrey growled and picked up her pace, pushing herself on faster.

I'm coming, Nathan. Hold on. I'm coming. Don't leave me.

Her shovel struck something hard and she recoiled, the vibration ricocheting up through her shoulders. Duke glanced up to meet her eyes and she saw the hope spark there before they both threw themselves back into their work. It didn't take long for Audrey to uncover a patch of glossy wood and she knew they were there. She tossed the shovel aside and fell down across from Duke, piling the dirt away with her hands. They found one edge of the box and worked from there, following it along the sides. By the time they unburied the second corner Audrey had realized what they were kneeling on. A coffin.

Hold on Nathan. Please, I'm almost there. Just hold on.

Audrey's fingernails splintered and her skin tore as she clawed at the ground with renewed fervour. When they'd finally unearthed just over half of the coffin she wedged her fingers into the edges and began pulling. The first side she tried wouldn't move, so she switched to the other and heaved. It shifted just slightly, but the weight of the earth on top of him wouldn't let her open it.

"Duke, help me!" she screamed. Duke leapt over to her side and jammed his hands down into the mud, his fingers curling around the little wooden lip that she'd found. They both tugged at it, their breaths puffing with the strain, until finally the lid began to rise. Mud and dirt slid around them as they hauled at it, blocking joints and slipping through the crack in the lid. When they'd gotten it halfway up, Audrey wedged herself into the opening.

"Nathan!" she yelled, using her body to keep the lid up. Nathan didn't move, lying perfectly still in the small puddle of muddy water that had flooded in and stained the white satin beneath him. He was dressed in only a pair of red-stained boxers, and every inch of his pale body seemed to be discoloured. Duke climbed in next to her, supporting the weight of the lid on his back.

"Get him out!" Duke grunted. "I can't hold this up for long."

Audrey grabbed Nathan around the chest, trying not to notice how cold his skin felt even against her drenched body, and pulled. It was difficult work because he was so much larger than her and his body was dead weight - no, not dead, please not dead - in her arms. Finally she had dragged him up onto the grass. Duke let the coffin snap shut as he came up to join her.

"Nathan, c'mon," Audrey said but her partner didn't move. She pressed her fingertips to his throat but she couldn't feel a pulse beneath his skin. "Damn it Nathan! Don't you dare!" Tilting his head to give him an airway, Audrey threaded her hands together over his sternum and began pumping. He couldn't be dead. Not Nathan. Not like this. She had to save him. Nathan couldn't die.

The childish rail-road song played in her head as she moved, keeping perfect time with the strong tempo. It had to work. She saved so many people. People that she didn't know and that she hardly associated with afterwards. If she could save all of those people, why not Nathan? She had to save Nathan.

"Audrey." Duke's voice broke through the raging tempest in her head, but she wasn't going to listen to him. Not when he had that cautioning sympathy in his voice.

"No!" she shouted back, never stopping in her chest compressions. Nathan had been alive minutes ago. She'd seen him on the camera, seen him fighting. He wouldn't give up so easily. She couldn't give up on him so quickly. Not on her Nathan.

"Nathan, please!" she shrieked into the night. She could feel tears in her eyes, mingling with the rain, but she ignored them. She hastily ducked her head down and covered Nathan's mouth with hers, breathing a long breath into his lungs. She watched his chest rise and then gradually fall as the air moved in and out of him. Instantly she switched back to chest compressions. "Don't leave me, damn it. You can't just make me fall in love with you and then leave me, you stupid monosyllabic asshat. Don't you dare!"

"Audrey!" Duke cut across her again but this time he sounded different. He reached out and grabbed her shoulder. "Audrey, stop!"

"No!" she yelled again, trying to shake him off.

"Audrey he's got a pulse!" Duke bellowed in her ear. "We've got to get him to the hospital, now, while it holds up."

Audrey paused when his words finally sunk him. She immediately reached for Nathan's throat and she could feel a weak throbbing under her fingers, shallow but steady. He was alive.

"C'mon, we've gotta go," Duke said. He scooped Nathan up off the ground and swung his body over his shoulder, and then took off running toward the path they'd come up. Audrey sprinted behind him. Her head was reeling as she watched the back of Nathan's skull as his head bounced against Duke's back. Nathan was alive. He would be okay.

Tree branches whipped at her body as they bolted through the trees, but Audrey didn't notice. She wondered if this trail had taken so long coming up. It couldn't have taken this long, did it? Had they gotten lost?

No, there was the Bronco. "Open it up," Duke shouted to her. Audrey darted around him and jerked the driver's side door open, shoving the seat forward. Duke lowered Nathan across the back seat and then gestured for her to climb in. Audrey clambered up into the back with Nathan, and she hadn't even settled in before Duke was pushing the driver's seat back into place. The engine roared to life and Duke flipped a U-turn to steer them back toward town.

Audrey sat down on the bench and laid Nathan's head in her lap, stroking his hair. Blood had clotted in it and plastered it to his skin, just like the red trails all over his body. Stitched cuts peppered his body, in methodical patterns. Large sections of his skin had been dyed blue and black. Burns and blisters were scattered all over, including around many of the deeper cuts. There were thick leather and metal cuffs still wrapped around his wrists and ankles, held in place by small padlocks, and blood was dripping from beneath them. What surprised her more than the abuse though was the bandages. Carefully wrapped bandages around cuts, medical tape holding gauze in place, well-placed stitches keeping deep cuts closed. In a few places they had split and come open, but for the most part he looked like he'd already been treated.

"C'mon Nathan, hold on for me," Audrey whispered, brushing her fingers across his forehead and down his cheek. Her other hand rested on his chest where she could feel his feeble heartbeat beneath a large stretch of bandage that had been taped into place. The truck jostled them as it flew over the dirt road, barrelling recklessly down the hillside. Audrey bent until her body was painfully folded in half, and rested her forehead on Nathan's. "Stay with me, Nathan. Stay with me." She pressed a quick kiss to his lips and for a second she swore she could feel him lean into the contact. But when she opened her eyes he looked the same as before and she passed it off as the movement of the truck and wishful thinking.

The sound of sirens up ahead was the most beautiful noise that Audrey had ever heard in her life. The end of the trail came into view and Audrey glanced through the windscreen to see several red and blue lights around the head of the trail. Duke slid the Bronco to a stop in the middle of the circle of police cars. When Audrey saw the ambulance parked among them her heart flew.

Duke jumped out and folded down the driver's seat, and then helped Audrey lift Nathan from the backseat. A set of paramedics jogged over with a gurney and they laid Nathan on it. In an instant he was being rushed toward the ambulance. Audrey made to follow but Seddal caught her by the arm quickly. "Did you get the guy?" he asked.

"He's back in the building," Audrey said. She shot a pleading look to Duke and he quickly chimed in, "I'll show you." Audrey gave him a grateful smile and then ran for the ambulance. The medics didn't question as she jumped in with them, settling down on the bench beside the gurney. She took Nathan's hand and threaded her fingers through his, watching as the medics took his vitals and set up IVs and strapped an oxygen mask to his face.

"He's stable," one of the medics announced suddenly, looking across the back of the van to meet Audrey's gaze. "Weak but stable. He's gonna make it."

Audrey paid no attention to the tears in her eyes as she lifted Nathan's hand and rubbed her cheek against it, trying to drink in the contact. "You're going to be okay now," she whispered against his knuckles. "I'm here and I'm not going to let you leave me again. You're home and you're staying."


	19. Loose Ends

The moment that the pager in his pocket had beeped, John had known he was in trouble. The pager was linked to the video surveillance system upstairs, and if it was going off then something was wrong with one of the cameras. It could be that the rain had shorted out one of them outside. Or it could be worse. Either way, he had to go check it out.

When he'd gotten upstairs to see the staticky screen, he'd known their time was up. The camera that was no longer working was the one that had been in the police station office, the one in the chief's office. He quickly rewound the recording a little and saw what he'd feared. Audrey Parker had found the camera. He'd shut down the transmission, hoping he'd killed it before they were able to trace the signal.

It hadn't taken very long to get rid of Nathan. He'd been planning for this, just in case. He was nothing if not prepared. Ever since he'd been told of Nathan's fear of the dark, he'd had this plan in his head. He'd have preferred to be able to lay it out better than it worked out. He'd wanted to turn it into a torture, not a finisher. Perhaps thread an oxygen tube into it so he would survive in the panic. The camera had been installed into the coffin already, but unfortunately the speakers had not. He would've liked to listen as Nathan Wuornos broke apart completely.

No, he'd never broken Nathan and that made him angry. There was nothing more beautiful than seeing the moment that a man's spirit shattered into oblivion. Nathan had been indignant and furious and stubborn, and near the end he had been resigned. But he had never broken. John considered that a failure.

It didn't matter though. As he'd watched the horrified face of Nathan through the camera, he'd known it wouldn't be long. Resigned to his fate or not, Nathan would surrender to the terror, and then he would die. All would go as planned.

Or at least it had gone as planned until Audrey Parker had shown up. It was a horrible mistake that John didn't see her the moment the trapdoor opened. He had been confident that it would take them longer to find him, if they ever did. Instead he'd climbed out of the door, ignorant to the detective and her gun trained on him. When he spotted her he drew the small handgun he'd hidden in the waistband of his pants, but he hadn't even gotten it aimed before she'd fired.

It was the first time in his life that John had been shot. He had seen people shot before, had shot people himself, but he'd never actually been on the receiving end of a bullet before. The feeling was something he couldn't describe, a blend of pains and sensory experiences he had never known. The searing bullet blazed into his thigh and he sank to the ground, the trembling muscles of his legs no longer able to support him.

Oh the fire in Audrey Parker's eyes was phenomenal. She towered over him, her gun held firmly and her posture giving off a true aura of power. It was no wonder the people of this town were drawn to her. It was so obvious that she was the magic behind this town and its strangeness. Her body practically radiated the magic. He wondered how much it would take to shatter her.

It wouldn't take much, he'd realized, after she'd seen the camera inside Nathan's tomb. No, all it would take to break Audrey Parker was the elimination of Nathan Wuornos. John had smiled to himself. Two birds with one stone. Perhaps he would make a little extra money from that. He knew his employer was not a fan of Audrey Parker either, and it was clear why. She was the next Lucy Ripley. And Audrey had made the same fatal mistake that Lucy had; she'd fallen in love with a local. That's what had been Lucy's undoing in the end. Not Troubles or curses or murders. Love.

The moment Audrey Parker and Duke Crocker had left, John had heaved himself up. His body was in agony but he didn't mind it. Pain was power. He tied his belt around his thigh above the bullet hole, pressed a hand to his bleeding stomach, and then slipped out of the building. The rain was cold but it made it easier for him to escape unnoticed. Through the sheets of grey he could see Audrey Parker and Duke Crocker digging at the earth like animals. He knew they'd never make it in time. Nathan had gone still just after they'd run out the door. No matter how quickly they dug, Nathan would be dead by the time they reached him.

John limped down the trail until he reached the place where his SUV was, parked between the trees and Nathan Wuornos' big blue truck. It was such a classic Nathan vehicle, really. Stoic and strong, vintage and powerful. Instead of jumping into the SUV like his leg begged him to, John chose another pathway and kept jogging. He'd scanned the layout of the land before, the few other times he'd been able to use this place as a workshop. This trail led around to the backside of town, near where he always met his client.

There was no way he'd have been able to get out on the path anyway. If Audrey Parker had informed the other officers, then they would surely have the trail blocked off. Much like the roadblocks that they had built around town the morning after Nathan's disappearance. He could get around them, but not in a car. Covert meant on foot.

An hour later he stepped into the designated clearing. He made a quick phone call, let it ring twice, and then hung up. That would serve as the message to meet. He would be paid for his work, and then he could leave this town and go back to his Kentucky bourbon and classical CD collection.

As he waited he checked his wounds. Both had penetrated clean through. Neither of them had hit anything important. John had to admire Audrey Parker's style. She aimed to incapacitate, but not to kill. Injury, not end. It was both commendable and stupid. A little disinfectant and some rest and he would be back to top form in a matter of weeks.

The trees stirred and John looked up to meet the eyes of his client. However the expression that he saw was not a pleased one. "You failed," his client said darkly.

"What?" John spluttered, confused. "I executed the job perfectly, just as you asked. I taught him pain, pains like he has never known. He hurt inside and out. And then I finished him, killed him off with his own worst fear. You couldn't have asked for a better job."

His client scowled. "Except for the part where he didn't die."

John's eyes widened in alarm. How was it possible? He'd seen it himself, seen the moment when the lack of oxygen had taken its toll on Nathan. Watched him surrender and still. Audrey Parker and Duke Crocker had had to dig through over five feet of torrential mud with just one shovel to find him. There was no way that they had been able to reach him before his sleep became permanent. It was impossible. All of that rushed out of John suddenly in a stammering mess.

"Then how is he on his way to the hospital at this very minute, with a very good chance of recovery?" his client growled dangerously. "The news is spreading all over town already. Audrey Parker and Duke Crocker dragged him up from the earth and brought him back to into town. They're saying he's been stabilized. That he'll survive."

With an agitated sigh, John dragged a hand through his hair. This was all that Audrey Parker's fault. If she hadn't shown up he would've had the time to finish things properly. So many tortures he'd been waiting to introduce Nathan to. He would have been able to send Nathan out in style. It was all because of that Audrey Parker. "He doesn't have to recover," John said. "He can be finished still. It's a simple enough task to eliminate an already ailing man."

"No, you're done," his client said firmly. "They will be watching now. They know who you are and there is no way you could get close enough to finish the job."

"I still made him suffer," John pointed out. "That's what you hire me for. To teach them their lessons. And I did that well."

"Yes, I've seen," his client said. "Do you forget that I am the one who installed all of those cameras? I watched your every move, Mr. Doe. You are as skilled an artist as always. Unfortunately your execution of the finer details has slipped. You're losing your touch."

"It's because of the camera that she found me out," John said. "The camera that you placed there. If it hadn't been for that she never would've known where to look."

"You still had time to finish Wuornos off before she arrived. You've gotten arrogant, my friend. If you had dismissed your love of theatrics, then Wuornos would be dead by now. He's alive, which means that you failed." His client shook his head sadly, a familiar frown settling over his features. "I am disappointed. You have done such great work for me in the past. For this town. You have been such an essential talent in clearing this town out of these cursed ones. It will be a shame to see you go."

"Wha-?" The word didn't even leave John's lips entirely before he felt the burn in his chest. Electricity poured through his veins, sending a wave of white across his eyes, and when it faded he found himself twitching on the ground. His body wouldn't respond when he told it to move, his muscles aching and numb at the same time as the raindrops struck his face. After a moment his client's face appeared above him.

"You're a liability now, John," he said. "They've seen your face. They won't rest until they've found you and brought you to justice. Which means they will be looking for the person who hired you. I can't have my name brought into this, you surely see why. I am too important to this town. Without me the cursed would spread their poison and the darkness will reign supreme. I cannot allow this to happen. Which means that I have to tie up this loose end now."

For the second time that day, John found himself staring up at the barrel of a gun. He pleaded with his body to move, to give him some escape from the fate ahead of him, but his muscles did nothing more than twitch from the residual electric currents. As much as he had caused pain and death in others, he had never imagined it for himself. He was the man who could not be beaten. He couldn't really die.

"Please," he begged, his voice hoarse and choked. His tongue felt thick and his words sounded garbled to even his own ears. "Please, Reverend. Forgive me."

Reverend Driscoll narrowed his eyes. "You have done good deeds in this town, helping to free Haven from the ungodly," he said. "I hope He takes this into account when you meet." He lifted his free hand to cross himself. "May God have mercy on your soul."

There was an echoing noise, a flash of white, and in a fraction of a second John Doe was dead.


	20. Epilogue

Three days. That's how long Nathan had been asleep. Well, sixty-eight hours to be precise. Sixty-eight hours since Audrey had dragged his body out of a mud soaked coffin. Sixty-eight hours since she'd frantically performed CPR, begging him not to leave her. Sixty-eight hours since that bumpy drive back to the hospital, cradling his head with her heart in her throat and praying for him to hold on. It had been sixty-eight hours and he still hadn't woken up.

They told her that it was expected. He had been through a terrible ordeal and this was his body's way of dealing with it. That much she could understand. After all, looking at him now she could see more bandages than skin. She just wished he'd wake up for just a few minutes, so she'd know he was okay. She wouldn't really believe it until he told her himself.

He'd been held captive for about thirty-six hours and had now slept for another sixty-eight. She cast a quick glance at the clock above the door. Make that sixty-nine hours.

It had been the longest three days of Audrey's life. Although the time Nathan had been missing was hard, at least then she'd had something to do. A mystery to solve, something productive to do to help. The last three days there had been absolutely nothing to do but wait. Sit and wait and pray to a dozen gods she didn't even believe in for any sign of mercy. The only relief that came now was the fact that at least she knew he was alive.

According to the doctors he didn't show any serious signs of permanent damage. His condition was miraculously stable. He must not have been unconscious in the coffin for too long because she had gotten him out before the oxygen deprivation could cause too much damage. There were no signs of malnourishment or dehydration. No internal bleeding besides the bruising on his skin. No infections in any of the various cuts or burns that covered his body. Physically, the only lasting signs of the ordeal would be some scars.

Mentally, on the other hand, was a whole other story.

Audrey held one of his hands between both of hers, grateful for the comfortable warmth. For the first couple hours in the hospital his hand had been cold and clammy between her palms. She'd found herself rubbing them to warm them. If he'd been awake he would've loved the feeling. She hoped that he could feel it in his sleep and would know she was there.

A yawn escaped her before she could stop it. She had hardly slept since Nathan had disappeared. After the brief nap that she'd caught on Duke's boat after they'd found the body of Michael Stauffer, she hadn't slept again until after Nathan had gotten out of surgery. Since then she had never left the hospital grounds, and she avoided leaving Nathan's room if she could help it. She ate in the cafeteria, showered in the adjoining bathroom, and slept in the chair beside his bed. Duke brought her a fresh change of clothes every morning and would sit and keep her company for a few hours before he had to get back to the restaurant. No one even bothered trying to talk her into leaving. She would be there when Nathan woke up, come hell or high water.

Now if only he'd wake up.

Audrey groaned and folded her arms on the edge of the bed, resting her cheek on back of his wrist and staring up the length of his body. He'd thankfully returned to a normal colour, or at least the skin between the bruises wasn't ghostly white anymore. Some of the bruises had faded to a dull yellowish-green, but the majority of them were still brilliantly blue and violet. All of the stitches had been redone, replaced with staples in some spots, and fresh bandages wrapped around his wrists and ankles. There didn't seem to be a place on his body that wasn't injured.

Worst of all were the cuts on his chest though. The doctor had shown them to her one day while he was changing the bandages and she'd been horrified by the sight; her own name scratched deep into his skin, right above his heart.

And he had felt every bit of it. The doctors had confirmed her suspicions that her own blood had been injected into him, mingling with his. It had been a miracle - one that the doctors couldn't explain - that his body hadn't rejected her blood, since they didn't match in type. Through the details she had gathered a vague idea of what had happened to Nathan down in that underground chamber. Police sweeps had found everything she needed to get the basics; chloroform, weapons, medical supplies, computer monitoring systems, intravenous nutrients and blood transfusions.

The plan had been careful and methodical, clearly done by someone who intended to keep him there for a long time and was very good at what they did.

Not that the man had survived to be prosecuted. She'd been in such a hurry to save Nathan that she hadn't even considered restraining him. She'd thought that two bullets might have done the trick but apparently not. By the time the other officers got to the building he'd been gone. A hunter had stumbled across his body in a clearing the next morning, a gun in his hand and a bullet in his head. The initial theory was suicide but Audrey wasn't convinced.

Brushing away those thoughts, she closed her eyes and let herself rest for a while. She hadn't napped in hours and it was about time she at least rest her eyes.

It felt like she'd just barely fallen asleep when she was abruptly jerked awake again. It took her a second to figure out what had woken her, and then she felt the hand in hers twitch violently again, accompanied by a strangled noise. Her eyes immediately shot open and she looked up at the head of the bed.

Nathan's eyes were still mostly closed, apart from a narrow sliver of pale blue visible between his lashes, but she could tell he must be awake. His jaw was tight, his teeth barred, and every muscle in his body had tensed.

"Nathan?" she asked in awe, quickly standing up. She placed a hand on the side of his face and he yelped, pulling away from the contact. "Nathan, calm down, it's me."

A nurse rushed into the room but Audrey shook her head, gesturing for the woman to stay back. This time she took Nathan's head firmly in her hands, ignoring the way he tried to jerk away from her and the pained noise he made deep in his throat. "Nathan, hey, shh, it's me," she said gently. She leaned in and rested her forehead against his and she could feel his fast, laboured breathing against her face. "It's me. I'm here. You're safe. Calm down."

His body had stopped fidgeting so much. "Pr'err?" He frowned, cleared his throat and tried again. "Parker?"

"Yeah Nathan, it's me," she assured him, easing her grip on the sides of his face now that he wasn't thrashing. "You're safe, I promise. Just relax so you don't hurt yourself, okay?"

"I can't move," he mumbled. "It's all – heavy. Where's this?"

"You're at the hospital," Audrey said. "And you probably can't move much because of all the morphine they've got you on." Nathan's eyes blinked slowly, shallowly, for a few seconds and then he finally managed to open them most of the way. "Welcome back, boss."

For some reason, Nathan was still scowling at her. "You're dead," he said. "So I'm dead now?"

"What? No, Nathan, you're fine. We're both fine," she said, caught off guard by his reaction.

"He's doing this, isn't he?" he asked and his weak voice sounded like a growl. "John. Stop fucking with me. God, just let me die already!"

"No, no, Nathan," Audrey said in a panic, "it's fine. I'm here, I promise it." When he still didn't look convinced she bent in and pressed a kiss to his lips. "Please, Nathan trust me."

"But you're dead," he said and suddenly the anger had gone from his voice, leaving nothing but sadness in its place. "You died. He killed you. That's why I could feel again, and I did. I felt everything. It hurt so much."

"I'm fine," Audrey said. "He didn't hurt me." She lifted his hand and held it against her cheek, and his fingers traced over her skin determinedly. "It was my blood, that's why you could feel. He took my blood from the hospital, the blood I'd donated for the police drive, and he put that in you. That's what made it so you could feel."

Nathan stared at his fingers touching her skin with fascination, like a man lost at sea would stare at an island in on the horizon. "You're real? This is real?"

"It's real," she assured him. "You're home. You're safe."

For the first time since they'd met, Audrey saw Nathan Wuornos completely break down. Even when The Chief had died, she'd only ever seen him get withdrawn and angry, and then defensive but accepting. Now his eyes welled up and his lip shook. Audrey did the only thing she could think of: she bent in and pulled him into a hug. Nathan's arms wrapped around her like a vice and he buried his face in the crook of her neck so his warm tears dripped onto her collarbone. She held him against her body, murmuring soft reassurances until his body stopped trembling and his choked sobs quieted.

When he finally released her, Audrey sat up and then brushed the moisture from his cheeks. He winced when her fingers skated over a bruise beneath his eye and she hastily pulled back. "I'm sorry."

"Don't," Nathan said. He grabbed her hand and placed it back on his cheek, holding it there with his own hand and leaning into the contact. "Don't be. I can feel you. It means this is real." Audrey could feel the tears boiling up in her own eyes again and she blinked them back. Once her vision had cleared she noticed that Nathan's eyes were darting around the room. "John. Is he-?"

"He's dead," she said quickly. Even though he looked surprised, the set of his shoulders eased. "How do you feel?"

"Numb," Nathan answered. From any other person that statement would've been different, but from him she knew what it meant: he was back to normal. "Although, I'm sort of - heavy. My body won't move right."

"Morphine," Audrey supplied. "Lots of it. They didn't want you trying to get up and move around too much. The drugs are there to dull whatever pain might be left over and to dissuade you from getting up."

"It's working," he said. He seemed to take a few deep breaths and then asked, "How did you find me? I remember - I was in -" He paused and grimaced, and she saw something spark in his eyes: fear. "The dark. I was inside a coffin. I can remember that part. And then it got hard to breathe. I died. How am I here? How did you find me?"

So she told him. She told him everything, from waking up in her room alone to finding the blood on his truck. From Duke finding the body of the orderly to their morning search of the hospital records. From the camera to the call from hospital security to Seddal and Kapps getting the coordinates. The crazed drive up the hill, her interrogation of his captor. Digging up the coffin. Resuscitating him. The ride back to the hospital.

"You didn't kill him?" Nathan asked. "John, I mean."

"I wish I had, but no," Audrey admitted. "We found him the next morning. They think it was suicide." She paused thoughtfully. "You say his name was John?"

"That's what he called himself," he said. "John Doe. Who was he, really? Do you know?"

Audrey nodded, dragging up the conversation she'd had with Julia when the M.E. had come to visit her. "Yeah, they IDed him that day. Dr. Grant Sattler. He used to be a pain management therapist in South Dakota. Then apparently his wife contracted some sort of very painful autoimmune disease. After she died he snapped, and then just disappeared off the map. They've been circulating his records and they're matching dozens of unsolved murders and kidnappings to him all over the country."

"He knew things," Nathan said darkly and his grip on her hand tightened. "About me, and about you. Things I never told other people. He knew what your blood does to me. He knew about us being together. And that I'm scared of the dark."

"The cameras," Audrey said. "He was watching us for weeks. They found months worth of footage stored on the computers. Ever since The Chief died."

Nathan shook his head. "It wasn't him watching," he said. "At least not at first. Someone hired him, he told me so. Someone was watching us, and once they found out how to get to me they called him in to do the dirty work."

"We'll find out who it is," she said confidently. "It's all connected to this tattoo business. We'll figure it out and we'll stop them."

"There's a war coming," he said distractedly. "I can tell."

"Let it come. We'll deal with it when it does," Audrey said unconcernedly. She reached up and affectionately brushed some of his hair from his forehead. "But for now, it's time to relax and recover. You're home and you're safe. Rest up, boss, we're going to need you when this town blows apart."

Audrey made to slide down off the bed but Nathan said, "Wait." She stopped and looked back at him, and his eyes had taken on that same uncertain spark. "You don't have to go. Just, uh, you can just lay here. If you want."

"I can't lay down with you, you'll be able to feel all of those injuries," she pointed out. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Morphine," Nathan said simply. "I won't really feel it anyway." She still hesitated and he added, "Please, Audrey. Don't make me beg."

And suddenly she realized what it was. He wanted to feel her next to him. He wanted to know that she was there, and he wasn't alone. That he really was home and safe and with her. Without a moment's hesitation she toed out of her shoes and stripped off her jacket, and then climbed back up onto the bed. She pulled the blankets over the top of them both and then curled into his side. She was careful to not let any of her bared skin touch any of his more painful injuries, but if he felt them he didn't react much.

"Thank you," he murmured into her hair, resting his head against the top of hers and tightening his arm around her shoulders. Audrey closed her eyes and laid her head on his chest, her cheek on the gauze over his heart, where he wouldn't feel it. Through the thin cotton she could hear his steady heartbeat.

"That's what partners are for," she responded. She knew they were more than partners, more even than friends, but she wasn't interested in worrying about putting a label on them right now. They would have time for that later. Now, even though she hadn't been tired just minutes ago, suddenly she could feel the pull of sleep dragging her down. Warm and comfortable at Nathan's side, she finally felt relaxed. "Oh and Nathan," she added, and he gave a low hum to show he was listening, "I hope you know this means that I am never letting you out of my sight again."

Nathan chuckled, a deep rumble that vibrated through them both. "I can live with that."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Lighthouse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/706527) by [ArtemisRayne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisRayne/pseuds/ArtemisRayne)




End file.
